Using Wordpress for Internet Publishing

Using For Internet Publishing Laura Solomon Library Services Manager OPLIN [email_address] www.oplin.org

The agenda today:

What is WordPress & some stuff about it

Comparison to Blogger

Some examples of Wordpress installs

How OPLIN uses WordPress

Installing and working with WordPress

What is WordPress?

What constitutes a blog?

Ongoing chronicle of information

Frequently updated

Pieces/parts:

Main content area with posts

Archive of older posts

A way for people to leave posts

Links to other sites

One or more RSS feeds

Wordpress is not…

Content Management System

(CMS)

What can WordPress do?

Act as a supplemental section or blog

Provide additional functionality

What CAN’T Wordpress do (probably)?

Replace your entire web site

Wordpress is…

A little background

The largest self-hosting blogging tool in the world

Open source

Can download and customize it

Different flavors of Wordpress Hosted Local Photo courtesty of iShot71 (Flickr)

Hosted: “No worries, mate!” www.wordpress. com Less access to plugins Easy to get started Less control of the look Virtually no setup Cons Pros

DIY: Calling Bob Vila..(Local) www.wordpress. org Cons Pros Upgrades and backups are on your own More easily integrated into existing sites *Might* need a good tech in-house or to hire Access to more plug-ins Requires backend database and scripting languages support* Total control over the look and layout

How does this compare to Blogger?

Blogger vs. WordPress Supports categories No support for categories Great extensibility with widgets More limited functionality Hosted or local installation Entirely hosted Slightly more complex Slightly simpler WordPress Blogger

What’s a widget?

Sidebar plugin

Additional functionality without changing source code

Some example widgets

Active Discussions - Display posts with currently active discussion threads

Contact - Adds a contact form to the sidebar

del.icio.us cached++ - Create a list of the latest bookmarks on a del.icio.us account, from its RSS feed

Flickr Badge Widget - display your flickr photos in the sidebar

Now Reading scroll down on that page to see the widget version

WP Polls - a widget for WP Polls plugin

How OPLIN uses WordPress

Actually installing WordPress

Ingredients:

MySQL database (preferably with admin tool)

Web server

PHP

Download of Wordpress

Caffeine helps, I swear

Your new best friend! http:// www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp.html

Do this…

Allow a really good chunk o’time

Surround yourself with happy thoughts

Be patient

Actual demo here

What to do

Install XAMPP

Go to the XAMPP admin panel and open up the admin interface for Apache

Click on phpMyAdmin on the left and create a new database

Unzip WordPress. Put actual wordpress directory in the htdocs directory of Apache (most likely C:xampphtdocs) so that you end up with C:xampphtdocswordpress.

Take a deep breath, the hard parts are over!