📖 WordPress Set Up On Class Server

WordPress

WordPress (WP) is an open source Content Management System (CMS) application designed to support the development of websites. Initially, WP was built to host blog sites but has undergone a rigorous transformation into a website management system to support many types of sites. WP has a number of options that can expand and enhance its core capabilities making it one of the most popular content management systems in the world. Information on the Wikipedia page for WordPress covers much of the history and development of this system.

  • Open source blogging tool and content management system (CMS).
  • Based on PHP and MySQL (but you don't have to know PHP or MySQL to use it).
  • Currently the most popular CMS in use for new websites.
  • Based on the use of themes which can be easily customized.
  • Does not require knowledge of HTML or CSS (but it helps!).
  • Blogging features allow you to update your website/blog frequently, receive and respond to comments from your readers, and allow others to subscribe to your site content using RSS.
  • Built in search engine optimization (SEO).
  • Frequent security updates.

WordPress Online Resources

WordPress is a well-known content management system used around the world to host a variety of enterprise level web sites. As such, it has a large pool of training and technical resources. These are resources used by developers to improve their WordPress skills.

Resources

For this course, we are going to be using online resources.

  1. WordPress Tutorials
    This is the official WordPress documentation site at wordpress.org. There are a number of good tutorials at this site.
  2. WPBeginner Tutorial Videos
    This is a free tutorial site that has some great video tutorials. It does require you to register an account to see the videos, but there is no cost or request for a payment method. To get started on this site, click the link above and create your free account. You will then get an email to allow you to login. You will get a few emails from this site, but you can unsubscribe when the course is over or better yet, just create a temporary gmail account to use for this.

Each lesson will provide a link to the tutorials in each of these resources that cover the material from that lesson. For this first lesson, you should review these tutorials and videos.

WordPress Documentation
  1. Installing WordPress - optional - IMPORTANT NOTE: review the information here, but do NOT attempt an install. You will be configuring an installation on the course web server, so your instructions will be different.
  2. First Steps With WordPress
  3. WordPress Semantics
WP Beginner Video Tutorials
  1. What is WordPress?
  2. WordPress.com vs. WordPress.org
  3. How to Install WordPress - optional - IMPORTANT NOTE: review the information here, but do NOT attempt an install. You will be configuring an installation on the course web server, so your instructions will be different.
  4. The Dashboard

WordPress.org vs WordPress.com

WordPress.org is the support site for WordPress. Here are several useful items available to developers.

  • Download WordPress to create your own custom WordPress site.
  • View the documentation for WordPress.
  • Find and download themes and plugins.
  • Connect to the WordPress community through forums, blogs, mailing lists, etc.

WordPress.com is a hosting service for WordPress blogs.

  • Free hosting service for WordPress blogs.
  • Limited number of themes.
  • Cannot install your own plugins.
  • Doesn't allow all widgets and Flash players.
  • Premium service available for a fee with more space, fewer restrictions and no advertising.

Setting Up Your WordPress Site

WordPress has already been installed for you on our mywebtraining.net class server. To access your WordPress installation, go to https://mywebtraining.net/webdev/AvatarName/ where AvatarName is the name of the avatar assigned to you during your server registration. You should be prompted to set up WordPress. In order to configure your WordPress site, you will need to enter the following information.

Screen shot of the WordPress setup

NOTE: If you have not registered for a class server account, please see the article to Register for Student Server Access for instructions on getting a student server account. You will need the credentials from this registration for your setup. For mywebtraining.net installations, you must append the AvatarName with sherd_.

  • Database Name: sherd_AvatarName (case sensitive)
  • Database Username: sherd_AvatarName (case sensitive)
  • Database Password: same as FTP password assigned during server registration
  • Host is localhost (use default)
  • File prefix is wp_ (use default)

Screen shot of the WordPress connection details

When you click the Submit button, WordPress will check your credentials against the database to see if it can establish a connection. If all is well, you will be shown a success page with a prompt to run the installation. Click Run the installation.

Screen shot of the WordPress run the installation

Next page...

  • Enter a site title - this will show in the header of your site. (This can be changed easily later on if you're not sure what you want the site title to be)
  • Enter an administrative username and password. This is used for you to login to your WordPress site to make changes. 
    Do not forget this username and password. You will not be able to edit your site without it!
  • Enter your email address.
  • Click Install WordPress.

Screen shot of the WordPress site information

Once you have completed the install, you will receive a Success message.

Screen shot of the WordPresssuccess message

Next, you be prompted to login to the dashboard - or the administrative backend of your WordPress site - where you can begin configuring your site and adding content. 

Screen shot of the WordPress admin login