1. Stephanie Leary @sleary stephanieleary.com
The WordPress University

2. New book coming Fall
2014!
Content Strategy for WordPress
demonstrates how to build structured
content for higher ed sites.
Sign up to be notified when it’s out:
http://sleary.me/list

3. Steph’s Stuff
• @sleary
• stephanieleary.com
• profiles.wordpress.org/sillybean
• slideshare.net/stephanieleary

5. Why WordPress?

6. Common Situation
• No staff
• No budget
• No server
• Thousands of HTML files
• ... and broken links
• No search
• No RSS feeds

7. Advantages
• Easy UI for managing posts and pages
• Scheduled publishing
• Clean URLs
• Feeds for everything
• One-click upgrades
• Widgets and menus
• Thousands of free plugins and themes

8. Weaknesses
• Lacks native reusable content & network-
wide internal linking system
• Requires caching plugin, not included, to
optimize speed
• Critical plugins can fail as WP advances
• Disjointed and incomplete advanced
documentation
• Heavy use of pages can be problematic
• Lacks robust native workflow

9. Compared to other
CMSs
• Fast development cycles
• WP 3.0 to 3.1: 8 months
• 5-6 months more typical
• Drupal 6.0 to 7.0: 3 years
• Joomla 1.5 to 1.6: 3 years
• Cohesive, disciplined core developer
group
• UI focused on ease of use

10. Compared to other
CMSs
• Core features work very well
• Comments
• RSS and Atom feeds
• Permalinks
• File uploads
• Nonessential features relegated to
plugins

11. WordPress Tour

22. Media Uploads
• Limited to unpublicized list of MIMEs
• Easy to add or remove MIMEs
• Size/space limited by PHP, site settings
• Grouped into folders by date:
• wp-content/uploads/2012/10/file.jpg
• files/2012/10/file.jpg

23. oEmbed
• YouTube
• DailyMotion
• Vimeo
• Flickr
• Twitter
• Scribd
Check this out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTDNLUzjkpg
Hooray!

27. Basic Roles
• Administrator
• Editor
• edits pages, publishes others’ posts
• Author
• publishes their own posts
• Contributor
• submits their own posts to editor
• Subscriber

28. Posts vs. Pages
• Posts
• date-based
• non-hierarchical
• categorized and tagged
• Pages
• hierarchical

29. Custom Fields,
Taxonomies, and Post
Types

30. Custom Fields
• Adding more information to posts
• Default input vs. custom meta boxes
• Examples: content audit notes
• Custom Meta Boxes class on GitHub

33. Taxonomies
• Extra sets of categories and tags
• tags, people, locations, departments
• People
• Locations
• Departments

36. Taxonomies
• Default taxonomies
• Categories
• Post Tags
• Menus
• Link categories
• Custom examples
• People
• Locations
• Departments
• Colleges

37. Custom Post Types
• Default post types
• Posts
• Pages
• Attachments
• Revisions
• Menu Items
• Custom examples
• Courses
• Faculty profiles
• Specimen inventory
• Reference catalogue

38. Post Types
• Things that are not
• blog posts, news
• pages, information about your
office
• Anything that needs to be
catalogued and displayed separately

39. Course Post Type
• Custom fields: arbitrary entry
• professor name
• email
• phone
• course code
• Taxonomies: selecting items from a list
• college
• department

42. Feeds

43. Feed Clean URL
Basic
/feed
/feed/atom
Comments /comments/feed
Category
(slug: news)
/category/news/feed
Tag
(slug: book)
/tag/book/feed
Multiple Tags
(slugs: book, dvd)
/tag/book+dvd/feed

44. Feed Clean URL
Author
(nickname: Joe)
/author/joe/feed
Post Type
(slug: course)
/feed/?post_type=course
Taxonomy
(genre: mystery)
/genre/mystery/feed
Search Term
(wordpress)
/feed/?s=wordpress

45. 5 Minute Installation!
Unless your campus infrastructure sucks.

46. Basic Installation
• Gather database information: name,
username, password
• Unzip files to server
• View in browser
• Fill in values
• Pass Go, collect $200

47. Network Setup
• Decide: subdirectories or subdomains?
• Wildcard DNS is not required if you are
not letting people sign up for new sites
on their own.
• Users already in the system can be
added to the new site.
• http://codex.wordpress.org/Create_A_N
etwork

49. Domain Mapping
• snoopy.wordpress.com ->
snoopycorp.com
• snoopy.webserver-1.school.edu ->
snoopy.school.edu
• WordPress MU Domain Mapping

50. Network Sites
U of
Foo
Liberal
Arts
Science
Business
Agriculture
Law

51. Network Domains
U of
Foo
Liberal
Arts
Science
Business
Agriculture
Law
foo.edu
law.foo.edu
arts.foo.edu
business.foo.edu
science.foo.edu
ag.foo.edu

52. Child Themes
Parent
Theme
Law Child Theme
Arts Child Theme
Business Child Theme
Science Child Theme
Ag Child Theme

53. Campus Network
Colleges
Clubs
Administration
Blogs
Sports

54. Break

55. Themes

56. Basic Theme Setup
• styles.css and index.php
• More specific files for each archive type:
• Single post, page, or custom post type
• Category and tag archives; custom taxonomies
• Date-based archives (day, month, year)
• functions.php turns on feature support; works
like mini-plugin
• header.php, footer.php, sidebar.php -- basic
includes
• comments.php

57. get_header()
Loop
while (have_posts()):
the_post();
the_title();
the_content();
comments_template();
endwhile;
get_sidebar()
get_footer()

58. The Loop
• while (have_posts()) ... endwhile;
• Translation:
• if the invisible query found posts, then for
each post, print the following:
• the_title();
• the_content();
• etc.

59. Have Posts?
• What was requested?
• What was returned?
• How many posts were returned, and how
many are displayed on this page?
global $wp_query;
var_dump( $wp_query );

60. How this comes
together...
• You click a category link on a post.
• Based on your permalink structure, WordPress
knows you are requesting a list of posts in that
category. It queries the database.
• It finds 53 posts. Your Reading setting says 20
per page.
• WordPress assembles the first 20 posts' data,
plus links to two more pages.

61. Which template?
• Which theme file is used?
• category-slug.php
• category-id.php
• category.php
• archive.php
• index.php
• See Show Template plugin

62. Advanced Themes
Page templates
Conditional tags
Multiple sidebars
Widget areas
Theme options
Editor styles
Tips:
handling subcategories
without tons of files
conditional sidebars

63. Child Themes
/*
Theme Name: My Child Theme
Description: A child of Parent Theme
Version: 1.0
Author: Stephanie Leary
Template: parent
*/
@import url(../parent/style.css);
/* Overrides: */

64. Other Child Theme Files
• If template is present in child theme, it
will be used instead of parent theme’s
file
• BOTH functions.php files will be used

65. get_header()
Loop
while (have_posts()):
the_post();
the_title();
the_content();
comments_template();
endwhile;
get_sidebar()
get_footer()
Child theme contains sidebar.php

66. get_header()
echo do_shortcode('[gallery]'); get_sidebar()
get_footer()
Child theme contains page template
or loop template part

67. Theme Frameworks
• A complete theme with many options
• Page templates
• Specific archives
• Many widget areas
• SEO features
• custom fields for keywords
• title filters
• Genesis Google snippet preview
• Can be overridden by child themes

70. Building a Theme
1.Craft your HTML structure
2.Drop in WordPress template tags
• the_title()
• the_content()
• etc.
3.Move common elements into include
templates
• Header
• Footer
• Sidebars
• Search form

71. Building a Theme
4.Create widget areas
5.Handle comments and comment
forms
6.Don't forget 404.php!

72. Conditional Tags
Conditional ID Slug Title Array Other
is_single X X X X
is_sticky X
is_page X X
is_page_template Filename
is_category X X X X
in_category X
is_tag X X X

73. Conditional Tags
is_home is_search is_day is_feed is_404
is_comments_
popup
s_front_page is_time is_month is_attachment is_trackback
is_active_ sid
ebar
is_archive is_date is_year is_singular is_preview is_admin
comments_ o
pen
pings_open is_paged in_the_loop

74. Developing for
WordPress

75. Hooks
• Actions: places you can run your own
functions
• wp_head
• wp_footer
• Filters: things that can be altered with
your own functions
• the_title
• the_content

76. Using Hooks

77. Excerpts for Pages
function excerpts_for_pages() {
add_post_type_support( 'page', 'excerpt' );
}
add_action( 'init', 'excerpts_for_pages' );

78. [rules]
function the_rules( $atts ) {
return "These are the rules!";
}
add_shortcode( 'rules', 'the_rules' );

79. Capital P, dangit!
function capital_P_dangit( $text ) {
return str_replace( 'Wordpress',
'WordPress', $text );
}
add_filter( ‘the_content’, ‘capital_P_dangit’);
add_filter( ‘the_title’, ‘capital_P_dangit’);

80. Admin Bar Link
function linkme( $admin_bar ){
$admin_bar->add_menu( array(
'id' => 'my-item',
'title' => 'My Item',
'href' => '#',
'meta' => array(
'title' => __('My Item'),
),
));
add_action( 'admin_bar_menu', ‘linkme', 100 );

81. Settings API
• Register settings
• form action=”options.php”
• update_option(‘foo’, ‘new value’);
• get_option(‘foo’);

82. Troubleshooting
• define('WP_DEBUG', true);
• Debug Bar plugin
• View hooks
• See Nacin on debugging WordPress

83. Evaluating Themes
and Plugins
• Search code for:
• base64()
• eval()
• include(../../wp-config.php)
• include(../../wp-load.php)
• Does it use updated libraries?
• wp_deregister_script( ‘jquery’ )

84. Evaluating Themes
and Plugins
• Are wp_head() and wp_footer() missing?
• Does it insert links you can’t remove?
• Does it pester you for commercial
upgrades?

85. Writing Secure
Themes and Plugins
• Use the Settings API
• Check user capabilities
• Check nonces and referrers
• Validate user input
• Escape output

86. Developer References
• Mark Jaquith’s
WordCamp
Phoenix
presentation
• Professional
WordPress Plugin
Development

87. Theme & Plugin Q&A
???

88. Performance and
Security

89. Backing Up
• WP DB Backup (single sites, database
only)
• Backup Buddy (network, database and
files, $$)

90. Upgrading
• Do it! (But back up first.)
• If the FTP Settings screen appears, add direct
file method to your config file. (See Codex
page on wp-config.php.)
• Upgrading via Subversion

91. Caching
• WP Super Cache
• W3 Total Cache
• Hyper Cache
• Batcache

94. Security Precautions
• Make sure WP files are group-writeable,
not world
• directories: 644 or 664
• files: 755 or 775
• Set up permalinks and caching, then
make .htaccess not writeable
• Change admin username
• Change database table prefix from wp_
• Create a database user other than root

95. Security Precautions
• Move wp-config.php up one directory
• Limit administrators
• Use Members to create less privileged
roles
• Prevent bogus login attempts with Login
Lockdown
• Run WP Security Scan and Exploit
Scanner
• Monitor filesystem with File Monitor Plus

96. More With WordPress

97. BuddyPress
Social Network Layer

98. BuddyPress
• Campus wide social network
• Company-wide internal communication
tool
• Niche social network for interest topic

101. BuddyPress Plugins
• Welcome Pack
• Achievements
• BuddyPress Share It
• Group Suggest Widget
• Simple Google Map Plugin

102. ScholarPress
A Learning Management System for
BuddyPress

103. Content Audit
"Now we’re talking real CMS capability!"

108. The WordPress
Community

109. Development Philosophy
• 2.9, 3.0, 3.1, 3.5 are all major releases.
• 3.3.1 is a bugfix and security update.
• Old releases do not get security
updates.
• Core developers set feature agenda for
major releases based on Trac tickets,
known problems, and user surveys.

110. Development Philosophy
• Development schedule kept on
make.wordpress.org/core.
• Meetings once a week in #wordpress-
dev.
• If it can be covered by a plugin, let it.
Core is for features most people need,
or frameworks developers can build on.
• If you want it fixed sooner, patch it
yourself.

111. Documentation
• Codex
• Forum
• WP StackExchange
• Trac
• Developers’ blogs

112. Support
• Active user forums on wordpress.org
• Individual plugin & theme developers
• Groups on LinkedIn
• huge Twitter population
• IRC channels

113. Support
• VIP Automattic (core creators)
• Third party vendors such as
MUSupport.net
• Core developers are also consultants
• WP-only hosts
• WP Engine
• Page.ly
• Sucuri.net security specialists

114. Discussion
IRC channels
• #wordpress
• #wordpress-dev
• #buddypress
• #bbpress
Mailing Lists
• WP-Hackers
• WP-Edu
wp-edu.org
Development blogs
• make/core
• make/ui
• make/themes
• make/accessibility
• make/wppolyglots

115. News Events
WordCamps
• San Francisco
• New York
• local:
central.wordcamp.org
• WP Candy
• Planet WordPress
• wpMail.me
• wpBeginner
• wpTuts

116. Making the Case for
WordPress

117. LAMP vs. IIS 7
• mod_rewrite
• .htaccess
• PHP-FPM
• Postfix
• URL Rewrite 1.1
• PHP running as
FastCGI
Nginx

118. Open Source vs.
Commercial
Open Source
Low or no initial budget
outlay
Premium support
options available
Variety of custom
development options
--------------------------------
Shelley launched in 2009
with $2k
Commercial
High startup costs
Enterprise support
contracts available
Often contracted to the
CMS company
for customization
-------------------------------
Texas 2yr launching
OmniUpdate this year:

119. Importing
• Many importers other than built-in list
• Writing your own MySQL-based import
• HTML Import
• Merging single installs into networks

120. Q&A

121. Demos?
• Network administration
• Plugins
• BuddyPress
• Content Audit
• HTML Import