WordPress as a CMS
Stephanie Leary Texas A&M University

Why WordPress?

Blogging
vs.
Content Management

CMS Capabilities
• posts vs. pages
• scheduled publishing
• basic workflow
• easy media embedding
• excellent SEO
• ubiquitous feeds

Killer Feature

Posts
• included in feeds
• categories
• tags
• excerpts
• comments and trackbacks
• custom fields

Pages
• not included in feeds
• page parent
• template
• menu order
• comments and trackbacks
• custom fields

Pages *
• included in feeds
• categories
• tags
• excerpts

Dirty little secret:
Posts are pages.
Pages are posts.

Things that are posts
• blogs • newsletters
• news archives • magazines
• press releases • journals
• podcasts • ...

Things that are posts
• anything you want in a feed
• anything that should be organized
by date

Things that are pages
• About Us
• Our Mission
• Hours and Locations *

Things that are pages
• anything that does not often
change
• anything that is not organized by
date

Other things
• Media uploads
• Users
• Links

Demo
• installation
• file import
• basic options
• Reading settings
• permalinks

Less blog, more CMS
• magazine-style home page
• great URL structure
• no “category” or “archives”
• contextual navigation
• breadcrumbs
• subpage listings

Magazine layouts
• multiple content areas
• category sections
• list of subpages
• widgets

Required theme files
1. index.php
2. style.css

Recommended files
3. functions.php
4. screenshot.png

More files

How a theme file works
• get_header
• The Loop
• get_sidebar
• get_footer

Inside the Loop
• title
• content / excerpt
• date
• categories
• tags
• author
• custom fields

Complicating matters
• Custom loops
• Multiple loops

Modifying the query
• limit • parent
• offset • categories & tags
• sort order • include
• exclude
• type
• author
• status

Resetting the query
$q = new WP_Query();
$q->query('showposts=5');
while ($q->have_posts()) :
$q->the_post();
the_content();
endwhile;

Resetting the query
wp_reset_query();

Outside the loop
• header
• footer
• sidebar

Sidebars
• one included by default
• get_sidebar();
• can use more than one with PHP
file include syntax
• <?php include_once
(TEMPLATEPATH . "/nav.php"); ?>

Theme/plugin hybrid
can be defined in functions.php
or installed as part of a plugin

Built-in widgets
• Archives • Meta
• Categories • log in/out
• feed
• Calendar
• Recent posts
• Links
• Tag cloud
• RSS*
• Text
• Pages

Creating your own

6,735*
official plugins
* at last count

Plugins can...
• add widgets • provide custom
fields
• create template
tags • alter write
screens
• modify loops
• add JS libraries
• create
shortcodes • ...
• alter user roles

Useful plugins

Writing your own

We want...
• pages
• a blog
• subscribe to comments
• a podcast
• a contact form w/spam guard
• a private area
• users to be redirected on login

Demo
• activate plugins
• set options
• create private user

Users
• username • IM info
• name • Gravatar
• email • bio
• URL

Adding
user
fields

Roles
• Admin
• Editor
• Author
• Contributor
• Subscriber

Publish settings
• Public
• Password-protected
• Private

Problems with “private”
• visibility: menus
• granularity: groups
• privileges: roles

Changing capabilities
/* allow subscribers to view private posts
and pages (functions.php) */
$subRole = get_role( 'subscriber' );
$subRole->add_cap( 'read_private_pages' );
$subRole->add_cap( 'read_private_posts' );

Role Manager

Hiding the admin area
• Sidebar Login
• Front-end Editor
• P2
• Posthaste

Moving servers
• Changing domains
• edit database fields
• use config file constants
• Changing directories
• maintaining permalinks

Caching
• WP Cache
• Super Cache
• W3 Total Cache

2.9 Features
• image editor • easy changes to
contact profile
• trash fields
• posts
• included handbook
• pages
• printable
• comments
• category-slug.php
• new excerpt filters
http://codex.wordpress.org/Version_2.9

What’s different in MU?
• Each user gets a blog
• Each blog gets a set of db tables
• Users can’t upload themes or
plugins
• Site-wide plugins installed for all*
• Site Admin screen (and role)

Thank you.
Stephanie Leary
Texas A&M University
@sleary
uwc.tamu.edu
sillybean.net
wordpress-as-cms.com