An Introduction to Wordpress

What is a Wordpress?

WordPress is a Free OpenSource Software that works exceptionally well as a content management system.
It is the best blogging tool available, but you can also use it to build a lightning fast website.

• First off, since WordPress is open source, it’s free.
• Since its open source it also has a thriving community of developers constantly improving the software and creating plugins to expand its functionality.
• WordPress lets you create pages (stand alone content) and posts (time-driven content) to flesh out the content of your site.
• The site’s look and feel can be changed instantly using thousands of Wordpress themes available on the Internet. Wordpress themes are custom designs for your website that control how everything is laid out and organized.
• Since Wordpress is written in PHP it is highly customizable, so you can use it for just about anything

What is a blog?

A blog is a collection of commentary posted on the internet. There are different types of blogs such as personal, corporate, political, podcasts (i.e. audio blogging), video, and more. Blog posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order with the latest posts right at the top.

What is a Dashboard?

The Dashboard is where to manage your blog. You can change settings, select themes, write or manage content, add or remove users, add images, buy upgrades, install plugin’s, and a ton more through the Dashboard.

How to start a WordPress blog?

All you need to do is open a hosting account, where you can have the Wordpress application installed.

Where to log in?

Once you have your Wordpress blog installed, you need to login to the WordPress administration area from where you can write posts and articles, manage comments, change your theme, and so on.

To log in the WP admin panel, navigate to its login page, by typing the URL in your browser:
http://www.your_domain_name.whatever/wp-admin/

What is a CMS?

A Content Management System (CMS) is software that makes it easy for nontechies to organize and manage web display content on the Internet. That’s big, because it makes maintaining and updating a website simple and affordable.

It is an enormous boost to the small business or organization that doesn’t have a massive tech budget.
It simplifies the process and puts the website back into the hands of content creators, allowing you to spend more time on what really matters—your content.

Benefits of Using WordPress as a CMS

• Modestly priced or Free

Using WordPress for your website means it’s cheap or free.

• It’s That Easy

WordPress is easy to use. If you can send an e-mail, use Microsoft Word or set up a Facebook account, then you can use WordPress. It’s website creation for non-techies.

• Do It Yourself

With WordPress you enter the Do-It-Yourself world. No more waiting for and paying a programmer to fix a tiny error, saving you time and money.

• Many Users, Many Places

WordPress is online and offers multiple users, which means you’re not the only one who can fix something in a pinch and you can access it from anywhere. That also means your important site is backed up on a secure server with multiple redundancies.

• Climb the Search Results

WordPress also makes it easier to optimize your content for search engines. That means your site is more likely to land on the first page of Google results, which means people are more likely to find you.

Disadvantages of Wordpress

• Wordpress theme templates are not very simple to modify and change around without tech skills

• The functions system is complicated and you need to understand some php

• You cannot easily control where specific widgets and other elements can be placed without coding and/or tag knowledge

• There is still limitations to running any kind of user/member based site

• WordPress is not modular in layout ability

• WordPress is not usable as a fully functional CMS for large websites or portal based sites unless you are highly skilled with HTML and PHP along with a lot of time.

• WordPress is limited as an e-commerce solution

Prior Wordpress Installation

Wordpress! is a product completely crafted out of PHP. It's built to dovetail into Apache2 perfectly.

It's install process is simplicity in itself.

The Wordpress Full_Package setup file downloaded from Wordpress.org is a zipped file. Extract the contents of the archive using Winzip or any other archiving tool as shown in Diagram 1.

Diagram 1

During extraction, all the files contained in the archive will be extracted to a folder, named Wordpress_{version_number} as shown in Diagram 2.

Diagram 2

If the archive was downloaded and extracted to D:\ there will now be a folder called D:\Wordpress_{version_number}\ where the files extracted from the archive can be found.

Rename the folder Wordpress_{version_number} to Wordpress as shown in Diagram 3.

Diagram 3

You are now ready to install Wordpress CMS on your local computer.

Wordpress CMS is normally installed on your local computer within a folder that is controlled by Apache Web Server.

NOTE: The installation and configuration of Apache Web Server is given in another tutorial on this website.

The parent folder in which Wordpress is installed on an Internet based host server is normally public_html. Hence your local computer should have a folder like D:\public_html.

NOTE: Normally the folder public_html is at root level. Not within another folder.

You can create D:\public_html using Windows explorer as shown in Diagram 4.

Diagram 4

Once D:\public_html is created create a folder named Wordpress within it.

Now Apache Web server needs to be informed of the existence of D:\public_html\Wordpress.

This is done by adding virtual domain codespec to Apache´s httpd.conf file.

The technique for doing this is described in The Wordpress Virtual Domain tutorial on this website, which is the next tutorial in this series.

Wordpress Download

Open a Browser window and enter http://www.google.com in the address bar and hit GO.

In the Google search windows that opens search for wordpress as shown in diagram 1.

Diagram 1.

In the Search results window Click on the Wordpress.org link as shown in diagram 2.

Diagram 2.

When the wordpress.org site opens in the Browser window click on button Download Wordpress {version number} as shown in diagram 3.

Diagram 3.

Save the zip file in D:/wordpress on your harddisk as shown in Diagram 4.

Diagram 4.

Creating a Wordpress Virtual Domain under Apache

The location Apache´s httpd.conf file is normally at
C:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Apache2.2\conf\httpd.conf

NOTE: This is assuming that Apache was installed in C:\Program Files on your local computer.

Open httpd.conf file in any text (i.e. ASCII) editor of your choice.

Locate the code block contained within
<Directory "C:/Program File/Apache Software Foundation/Apache2.2/htdocs"> </Directory> enties as shown in Diagram 1.

Diagram 1

Select this code block. Copy and Paste this code block immediately below the original.

NOTE: Please ensure that both
<Directory . . . .> and the </Directory>tags exist.

Change <Directory "C:/Program Files/Apache Software Foundation/Apache2.2/htdocs" > </Directory>.

To

<Directory "D:/public_html/wordpress"> as shown in Diagram 2

NOTE: Please note the use of the forward slash above.

Diagram 2

These entries within Apache´s httpd.conf file ensure that Apache knows that D:\public_html\wordpress exists and that directory permissions are set.

Once Apache knows the existence and location of D:\public_html\wordpress appropriate entries in the httpd-vhost.conf must be made.

httpd-vhost.conf is normally located at
C:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Apache2.2\conf\extra\httpd-vhosts.conf

Open the above conf file in any other text (i.e. ASCII) editor of your choice.

Copy the <VistualHost *.80 > block of code and paste it immmediately below the original code block.

Diagram 3

Make the following changes as shown in Diagram 4

ServerAdmin: <Email Id>

DocumentRoot: <Path where your virtual domain is located>

ServerName: <Name of the website>

ErrorLog: <Folder where all Apache errors logs will be stored>

CustomLog: <Comment the CustomLog>

Diagram 4

After making all the above entries in both httpd.conf and httpd-vhost.conf

Please Restart Apache Web Server

NOTE: The Apache Web Server icon is normally visible in the status bar of the Window.

Look at the extreme right hand side of the status bar.

If Apache Web Server does not restart please check all the entries made in the httpd.conf and httpd-vhost.conf files.

NOTE: Look especially carefully for spelling mistakes.

Making entries in Windows HOSTS file

Now its time to make entries in Windows HOSTS file as shown in Diagram 5

The HOSTS file contains mappings of IP addresses to host names.

There must be a single IP address / host name pair on a single line in the HOSTS file.

NOTE: The IP address and the Host name must be separated by a TAB.

The HOSTS file is normally located at C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

Diagram 5