WordPress Web Design For Dummies

by Lisa Sabin-Wilson

Overview

Your full-color guide to creating dynamic websites with WordPress

Are you familiar with the fundamentals of WordPress, but want to take your skills to the next level? From bestselling author and WordPress expert Lisa Sabin-Wilson, this new edition of WordPress Web Design For Dummies quickly gets you up to speed on the latest release of the software and shows you how to use it as a tool to create a customized, compelling, and cost-effective website—without losing your cool.

WordPress can be used to create a custom design for your website using complimentary technologies such as graphic design, CSS, HTML coding, PHP programming, and MySQL administration. With the help of this hands-on, friendly guide, you'll discover how to create an effective navigation system, choose the right color palette and fonts, and select different layouts. Plus, you'll find out how to tweak existing website designs with available themes, both free and premium, and gain the confidence to translate your design skills into paid work.

• Create dynamic, custom websites with the self-hosted version of WordPress
• Use free themes and enhance them with CSS and HTML
• Create a responsive design for mobile devices and tablet users
• Get to grips with the newest release of WordPress

Whether you want to use WordPress to spruce up your existing website or create a brand-new one from scratch, this do-it-yourself guide has you covered.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781119088646
Publisher:	Wiley
Publication date:	10/26/2015
Series:	For Dummies Books
Edition description:	3rd Revised ed.
Pages:	384
Sales rank:	535,115
Product dimensions:	9.10(w) x 7.40(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Lisa Sabin-Wilson is the co-owner of WebDevStudios, a development company specializing in custom WordPress plugins, themes, and deployments. She is a popular conference speaker and bestselling author of WordPress For Dummies and WordPress All-in-One For Dummies. Find her on Twitter @LisaSabinWilson.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

About This Book 1

Foolish Assumptions 2

Icons Used in This Book 3

Beyond the Book 3

Where to Go from Here 4

Part I: Establishing a WordPress Foundation 5

Chapter 1: Exploring Web Design with WordPress 7

Delving Into the Differences Between Blogs and Websites 8

Using WordPress as a Content Management System 10

Discovering the World of WordPress Themes 12

Checking Out Premium WordPress Themes and Frameworks 15

Getting Your Site Up and Running 16

Chapter 2: Understanding WordPress Requirements 17

Establishing Your Domain 17

Understanding domain name extensions 18

Considering the cost of a domain name 18

Registering your domain name 19

Finding a Home for Your Website 20

Examining what services web hosts offer 21

Finding a host that provides WordPress features 23

Planning for future needs 23

Being cautious about offers of unlimited space and bandwidth 24

Chapter 3: Installing WordPress on Your Web Server 25

Installing WordPress 25

Setting up the MySQL database 27

Uploading the WordPress files 29

Running the install script 31

Discovering WordPress Release Cycles 37

Understanding why you need to upgrade regularly 38

Examining release cycles 39

Keeping Track of WordPress Development 40

Chapter 4: Managing Content with WordPress 43

Archiving Content with WordPress 43

Building categories 46

Changing the name of a category 47

Creating new categories 49

Using static page parents and children 50

Customizing Permalinks 52

Making your post links pretty 52

Customizing your permalinks 54

Making sure that your permalinks work with your server 55

Syndicating Your Content with RSS Feeds 57

Introducing feed readers 58

Discovering the many WordPress RSS options 58

Using your RSS feeds with your social media accounts 59

Part II: Choosing the Right Tools 61

Chapter 5: Exploring Editors, Browsers, and FTP 63

Choosing the Right Text Editor for You 64

Notepad (Windows) 64

Notepad+ + (Windows) 65

TextMate (Mac) 67

Understanding and Choosing a Web Browser 67

Discovering browsers and tools 67

Understanding cross-browser compatibility 70

Introducing File Transfer Protocol (FTP) 72

Setting Up FTP on Your Hosting Account 74

Transferring Files with an FTP Client 76

Connecting to the web server via FTP 76

Transferring files from point A to point B 79

Editing files by using FTP 80

Changing file permissions 81

Chapter 6: Choosing Graphics and Software Resources 83

Exploring Image Types and Formats 83

Comparing raster and vector images 84

Looking at image file formats 86

Exploring Graphic Design Software 88

Using raster-based software 89

Using vector-based software 93

Using Online Image-Optimization Tools 95

Finding Online Image Libraries 96

Chapter 7: Choosing Colors and Fonts 99

Understanding Color 99

Checking out the color wheel 100

Examining the RGB and hex color models 101

Creating Color Schemes with Helpful Tools 102

Exploring different color combinations 102

Finding RGB and hex codes 104

Understanding Typography Essentials 106

Exploring font styles 106

Discovering web-safe fonts for content 108

Finding and Using Fonts for Graphic Design 110

Finding the right fonts for your project 110

Installing fonts on your computer 111

Chapter 8: Planning Your Design Strategy 113

Choosing the Width of Your Website 114

Designing with a fixed width 115

Designing with a fluid width 119

Designing a responsive layout 121

Choosing the Number of Columns 124

Determining Website Navigation 127

Understanding Content Display Options 128

Testing Your Design in a Sandbox Environment 129

Creating a sandbox environment 130

Using a plugin to back up and transfer from your sandbox 133

Using WordPress in a local environment 134

Part III: Working with WordPress Themes 135

Chapter 9: Finding and Installing a WordPress Theme 137

Finding and Installing a Theme from the Theme Directory 138

Deciding to Use a Premium Theme 140

Chapter 10: Working with the Default Theme: Twenty Fifteen 141

Exploring the Layout and Structure 142

Customizing the Header Image 143

Uploading Your Own Header Image 143

Including Custom Navigation Menus 147

Enhancing Your Website with Widgets 151

Understanding how widgets work 151

Adding widgets to the sidebar of the Twenty Fifteen theme 153

Using the Text widget 154

Adding the RSS widget 156

Chapter 11: Dissecting Themes and Templates 159

Understanding How PHP and MySQL Work Together 160

Exploring PHP Basics 160

Examining the makeup of a template tag 161

Trying out a little PHP 162

Managing Your MySQL Database 164

Viewing the Template Files in a WordPress Theme 166

Examining the Templates That Make Up a WordPress Theme 169

The stylesheet 171

The Main Index and The Loop 172

The Header template 177

The Sidebar template 181

The Footer template 181

Other template files 182

Exploring Template Tags, Values, and Parameters 183

Customizing Your Blog Posts with Template Tags 185

Putting It All Together 186

Connecting the templates 186

Using additional stylesheets 195

Chapter 12: Displaying Content with Widgets and Template Tags 197

Exploring Common Template Tags 198

Calendar 198

List pages 199

Post archives 201

Categories 201

Content types (WP_Query tag) 204

Miscellaneous but useful template tags 206

Adding New Widget Areas to Your Theme 208

Registering your widget areas 208

Adding widget areas to your template files 209

Using Template Files 210

Creating named templates 210

Creating and using template parts 211

Exploring content-specific standard templates 214

Using Page templates 215

Adding Theme Support for Built-In Features 217

Adding support for custom navigation menus 218

Adding support for custom post types 225

Adding support for post formats 232

Adding support for post thumbnails 239

Chapter 13: Understanding Parent and Child Themes 245

Customizing Theme Style with Child Themes 245

Creating a child theme 246

Loading a parent theme’s style 247

Customizing the parent theme’s styling 249

Using images in child theme designs 250

Modifying Theme Structure with Child Themes 252

Overriding parent template files 253

Adding new template files 254

Removing template files 255

Modifying the theme functions file 256

Preparing a Parent Theme 257

Part IV: Building Your Custom Website 259

Chapter 14: Using Basic CSS and HTML to Customize Your Site Design 261

Styling with CSS: The Basics 262

Introducing CSS 262

CSS selectors 264

Classes and IDs 265

CSS properties and values 266

Changing the Background Image or Color Used in Your Theme 267

Adding the custom background feature to a theme 267

Customizing the background 268

Changing the background using CSS 270

Defining and Positioning Your Header Image with CSS 271

Defining a background image to use as a header 271

Positioning, repeating, or scrolling your background image 272

Changing Basic Elements to Create a Unique Look for Your Site 273

Adding background colors and image effects 274

Choosing a font family, color, and size 274

Using borders in your design 276

Understanding Basic HTML Techniques to Use on Your Site 277

Inserting images 279

Inserting hyperlinks 279

Inserting lists 280

Chapter 15: Designing for WordPress as a CMS 283

Creating the Front Page of Your Website 284

Creating a static page 286

Assigning a static page as the front page 287

Tweaking the page to look like a website rather than a blog 288

Adding a Blog to Your Website 290

Creating a blank page for the blog 291

Assigning the new page as a blog 291

Creating Custom Page Templates to Achieve Different Layouts and Styles 292

Viewing the default Page template (page.php) 293

Creating a new category Page template 294

Comparing two Page templates 296

Creating Different Sidebar and Footer Templates for Your Pages 297

Creating Custom Styles for Sticky, Category, and Tag Posts 298

Chapter 16: Enhancing Your Website with Plugins 301

Installing WordPress Plugins via the Dashboard 302

Finding free plugins 302

Installing and activating a plugin 304

Installing Plugins Manually 306

Exploring E-Commerce Plugins to Use on Your Site 307

Understanding what you can do with e-commerce plugins 307

Examining some recommended plugins 308

Creating Photo Galleries or Portfolios 311

Inserting images into your page or post 311

Adding image styles to your stylesheet 317

Inserting a photo gallery 318

Creating Web Forms for Your Site with Plugins 323

Exploring different types of forms you can use on your site 324

Using helpful plugins to create forms 324

Building a Social Community with BuddyPress 327

Using Plugins to Integrate Popular Social Networks with Your Blog 330

Integrating Twitter with Twitter Tools 330

Integrating Facebook with WordPress 331

Part V: The Part of Tens 333

Chapter 17: Ten Powerful Plugins for WordPress 335

WordPress SEO 335

BackupBuddy 336

WP-Print 336

AppPresser — Mobile App Framework 337

Jetpack 338

Sucuri Sitecheck Malware Scanner 340

Facebook 341

WooCommerce 341

WP Super Cache 342

Google XML Sitemaps 343

Chapter 18: Ten Well-Designed Sites That Use WordPress as a CMS 345

IconDock 345

Kate Rusby 346

Katy Perry 347

LIVESTRONG 347

Microsoft News Center 348

Discovery Communications 348

Time 349

WebDevStudios 350

WeGraphics 350

WordPress.org 351

Chapter 19: Ten Free WordPress Themes 353

Hybrid 353

designPile 354

Responsive 354

P2 355

Annotum Base 355

Blackbird 356

iTheme2 356

Esquire 357

WP-Creativix 357

Gridline 357

Index 359