Wordpress Essentials Online Short Course

Ready For Some WordPress?

Chapter 1: Understanding What WordPress Is
About Blogging And WordPress
The Main Areas Of A WordPress Blog
A Blog's Front End And Back End

Chapter 2: Lets Getcha Up And Running With WordPress
Setting Up A Free Blog On WordPress.com
Setting Up A Self-Hosted WordPress Blog
Installing Locally On A Mac Part One: Installing MAMP
Installing Locally On A Mac Part Two: Installing WordPress
Installing Locally On A PC Part One: Installing XAMPP
Installing Locally On A PC Part Two: Installing WordPress
Task #1: Applications You May Use With WordPress

Chapter 3: The Sights: A Tour Of The WordPress Interface
Viewing And Customizing The Dashboard
Touring The Rest Of The Admin Interface
The WordPress Codex And Online Forums

Chapter 4: Making Your Blog Your Own
Gettin’ To Settin’ Up Your Profile
Setting The Blog’s General Options
Now On To Themes: Changing Your Blog’s Design
Discovering Even More Themes
Viewing Your Blog’s Theme Files
Using The WordPress Theme Directory
Manually Installing Themes
Auto Installing Themes From The Theme Directory
Task #2: Ten Awesome WordPress Themes To Explore

Chapter 5: Let’s Get Creating Some Posts
Touring The Edit Post Screen And Writing Posts With The Visual Editor
A Quick Mention: Setting Your Post’s Discussion Options
Editing Your Posts And A Look At The Quick Edit Feature
Formatting And Previewing Your Posts
Inserting And Editing Links To Sites And Email Addresses
Super-Sweet: It’s WordPress’s Kitchen Sink Toolbar
Setting Publishing Options For Your Posts
Understanding Excerpts, Trackbacks, And Pingbacks

Chapter 6: Additional Posting Techniques
Get Editing Your Published Posts
Making Your Blog Easier To Read: Adding "More" Links
Creating And Editing Posts With The HTML Editor
Ready For This? Creating HTML Posts With Dreamweaver
Adjusting Your Blog’s Writing Settings
Password Protecting A Post

Chapter 7: Adding Media To Posts, Part One
First Up, Setting Your Blog’s Media Options
Droppin’ Graphics Into Posts
Adding An Image From A URL
Loading Images Into The Media Library
Inserting Images Into Posts From The Library
Editing Your Inserted Images
Editing Images In The HTML Editor
Dig This: Using WordPress’s Image Editor
Understanding Graphics In Web Design
Technique #1: Preparing Images In Photoshop For Use On Your Blog
Technique #2: WordPress Workflow: From Illustrator To Photoshop To Your Blog
And Now On To Video

Chapter 8: Adding Media To Posts, Part Two
Adding In Some Video To Your A Posts
Using Auto-Embed To Add In Video
Droppin’ In Some Audio
Linking To PDFs And Other Types Of Media
Managing Your Inserted Media

Chapter 9: Working With Categories And Tags
Getting Started With Categories
Creating New Blog Categories
Gettin’ Organized; Applying Categories To Posts
Setting Your Blog’s Default Category (And A Fast Way For Creating Categories)
Get Applying Tags To Posts

Chapter 10: Working With WordPress Pages
Understanding Pages Versus Posts
Editing And Scratch Building WordPress Pages
Technique #3: Creating An HTML Contact Page With Dreamweaver
Setting Your Blog’s Front Page And Going Further With Dreamweaver Design
Controlling Page Order And Hierarchy
Makin’ Use Of Your Theme’s Page Templates

Chapter 11: Creating And Managing A Blogroll
What The Heck Is A Blogroll? Let’s Get Started
Adding Links To Your Blogroll
Adding And Removing Blogroll Links
Creating Custom Link Categories

Chapter 12: Viewing Comments And Adding Users
Viewing A Blog’s Comments
A Real-World Look At The Disqus Commenting System
Moderating Comments On Your Blog
Setting Up Discussion Options
Allowing Others To Contribute: Adding Additional Users
Understanding WordPress’s Different User Privileges

Chapter 13: Customizing Permalinks And RSS Feeds
Setting Your Blog’s Permalinks
So Let’s Get Creating Custom Permalinks
Viewing Your Blog’s .Htaccess File
Blog Syndication: Understanding RSS Feeds
Determining Your Blog’s RSS URL
Figuring Out RSS Feeds For Your Blog’s Categories

Chapter 14: Extending Your Blog With Widgets
A First Look At Widgets
Diggin’ Into Sidebar Customization
Getting More Comfortable With Widgets (And Setting Up An RSS Widget)
A First Look At The Arbitrary Text Widget
Using Dreamweaver To Creating A Custom Widget
Technique #4: Adding A Twitter Widget To Your Blog

Chapter 15: Into The World Of Plugins
Now On To Plugins: A Big Toe In The Massive Pool Of WordPress Plugins
Exploring The WordPress Plugin Directory
Installing And Configuring Plugins
Manually Installing Plugins On Your Blog
Task #3: Ten Killer WordPress Plugins To Explore
Adding In Some Custom Widgets

Chapter 16: Uploading Your Completed Site!
Step One: Exporting The Local Database
Step Two: Changing Local URLs To Remote URLs
Step Three: Creating The Live MySQL Database
Step Four: Adding A User To The Live Database
Step Five: Importing The Local Database Into The Live Database
Step Six: Setting Live Database Info
Step Seven: Uploading The Site Files
Step Eight: Viewing The Live Result

Chapter 17: WordPress Essentials Wrap-Up
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