Do you want to tweak WordPress? Create your own themes? Add new functionality to a child theme? Add a costum page? Welcome to Per’s WordPress tutorials.
One line of code. That’s all you need in order to get your sandbox. Developers often need a place where the can experiment with design ideas or Minimal Viable Productions. This tutorial will show you how to do this.
Download the file wp-config.php from your WordPress on your web host.
Edit wp-config.php in your favorite editor.
If you have WordPress up and running the settings in wp-config.php will be almost the same. But you have to change one line of code, if you want to run more than one WordPress installation on your web host.
wp-config.php
Find this line:
$table_prefix = 'wp_';
// change this line to:
$table_prefix = 'sandbox_';
If you need more WordPress on your web host, just change the table prefix every time.
Here is a guide to WordPress 5.5. This version is just released by WordPress (august 2020). We have a brand new block editor with exciting features.
What’s new in WordPress 5.5?
By now WordPress is skipped with a fantasctic block editor. Some even predict that the days of mighty Elementor and other competing block editors are counted. You don’t need a plugin in order to create fantastic content. Now WP is faster and more easy to use than ever before. Creating content isn’t harder than using Libre Office.
WordPress will load faster, and images will load “lazy”. Here is a guide to WordPress with tutorials ranging from installation of WordPress on your web host to advanced features on costum made pages – and themes. If you know your HTML and CSS knowledge about a content managing system is the next logical step.
Advanced Tweaks
If you want to tweak a theme and create some advanced stuff that the theme was not meant for you still may to do this in either PHP or use JavaScript with the WordPress REST API. If something is possible in HTML then you can certainly do it in WordPress. That is if you know how to.
Tutorials
Below you will find my WordPress 5.5 for Multimedia designers.
Install WordPress
If you don’t have WordPress on your webhost yet: here is a tutorial. Follow the step by step tutorial and pause the video while you install.
The host I use in the video is One.com. Of course this is only a sample.
Since I use One.com there is a discount offer for you here (and the discount will give me a similar discount too so you will support Multimusen too).
Multimedia designer often add interactive UX elements such as small animations via JavaScript.Use the custom HTML block element. Add your script like this:
You have to use window.onload = function( ){ } in order to check that all elements are loaded. Just add whatever scripts you have inside that function. If you use document.getElementById without the window.onload your script will not work.
The Child Theme
Why use Child Themes?
Use a child theme if you want to tweak the theme with your own code or stylesheets. If you change the code in a theme and update to a new version your changes are lost. The changes you make in a child theme are your own.
Create a Child Theme
Here is a quick guide to child themes. First you have to create a child theme. Follow the steps in thies tutorial.
Add Widgets to Your Child Theme Frontpage
If you choose a static frontpage for WordPress your theme will use the template file front-page.php. In the next tutorial I will add a few wdget areas to the frontpage.
A Living Document
Per’s guide to WordPress 5.5 is a living document. During the fall of 2020 I will add more tutorials from my WordPress classes at the Business Academy Aarhus to this page. Eventually you will find tutorials about:
Themes
Child themes
Costum pages
Recommended Plugins
SEO
WordPress Securitu
Have fun: Code is Poetry.
More About WordPress
Did you know: There are more than 50 articles in the WordPress category on Multimusen.dk.
Murat Kilic is one of our fellow senior lecturers at Business Academy Aarhus. He is a WordPress expert, and his video will help new WordPress users in many ways.
On Murat’s </ startlearning > there are plenty of cool guides to WordPress tweaks.
On </ startlearning > you will find Murats videos and tutorials about WordPress tweaks.
Som webudvikler har man ofte brug for at kunne eksperimentere med sagerne i en sandkasse, hvor andre ikke har adgang. Her er en vejledning i at sætte WordPress op på din localhost – det vil sige en WordPress, der virker på netværket derhjemme.
Sådan sætter du WordPress op på din localhost (1:2)
Sådan sætter du WordPress op på din localhost (2:2)
Læs mere om WordPress i min bog “WordPress in the Classroom” (2017). Her får du blandt andet historien om, hvordan WordPress themes har set ud gennem tiderne – og du kan lære mere om, hvordan man selv kan bygge et theme.
Opsætning af databasen i Windows I videoen er password = root og bruger = root; men sådan er det ikke på et Windows system. Her er bruger = root og passwordet er en tom linje.
NB: Denne tutorial er udviklet til et forløb på Multimediedesigneruddannelsen, hvor klasserne blandt andet lærer at sætte et WordPress-udviklingsmiljø op på en localhost.
When you develop a web site it is often more convenient to work on a local computer.
A) Install the Apache Server MAMP
B) Install WordPress on MAMP
Set up WordPress on localhost
In order to run WordPress needs a server environment with PHP and a MySQL database. Here you have several options. Whether you prefer one or the other does not matter much. Here are a few options, choose one of them:
After installing the localhost, you can install WordPress on your local machine. Follow these instructions. If you prefer to follow a video tutorial, here is one more:
Test content
Of course you could write a lot of test content, just to see how every HTML element, any image or whatever works. A better alternative is this: use the WordPress test unit. Here you download test pages, posts and images – and then you will be able to inspect whether everything works as it should.
The Theme Unit Test consist of a xml file with posts, pages, images and so on. You can import them via Tools > Import. You may have to add a plugin in order to import.
In fact this option is very practical. You can import and export content from a localhost to your online WordPress when everything is ready. But first you should try out some themes, and see how they behave with the test content.
In the menu section assign the test menu to the menu location. Now you are ready to see your theme in action.
Try out a few themes
As soon as you have the test content you might want to test a few themes. In the Dashboard go to Themes > Appearance and search for new themes. There are thousands of themes out there, so try to find something that looks like the design you want. In my opinion you should go for an open source theme. Not because it’s “free”, but because these themes have a code-base that’s more easy to change. Often the so-called professional themes have a horrible code, and it is meant to be so. If the user is not confused, how could they continue to sell more solutions?
A Few Useful Plugins
When you have found a good theme, you should add a few plugins. Whatever you choose is a matter of taste, but I’d recommend these as a starting point:
Jetpack (performance, tweaks, speed and more)
Akismet (fight spam)
A page builder, like:
Elementor
Page Builder (Site Origin)
Or just use the standard Gutenberg editor (it is better than most people think).
For SEO
Yoast
The SEO Framework
Security
WP Limit Login Attempts
Webshop
WooCommerce (very popular solution)
There are thousands of plugins for galleries, portfolios, shops, images and so on.
Create Content
As soon as these things are done, you are ready to create the actual content. When we develop web solutions it is best practise to work with real content, rather than the boring Lorem Ipsum.
In order to avoid confusion do this:
Delete the content from the Theme Unit Test
Create real content:
Pages for static content, such as “About Us”
Posts for the blog posts
Add widgets
Remember to use Categories and Tags. It will improve your SEO and give more power to your menus.
When you create the content, try you can try page builder!
Pagebuilding with Gutenberg
You should try out Gutenberg. It has many of the features, that you expect to find in Elementor and friends. WordPress’ new editor was not popular among developers when it was introduced.
The following tutorial is a fine introduction to Elementor by Adam Preiser. If you like the tutorial you can visit his tutorials on https://www.wpcrafter.com/ .
Pagebuilder: Elementor
Elementor is a pagebuilder plugin. You can drag and drop content elements where you want them. And if you have wireframes, you can imitate a basic wireframe in a few minutes.
From localhost to the Web
When your content is ready for production, you will have to export the content and the theme. The theme is separated from the content – that’s why you must do the export in two steps. But first you’ll have to install WordPress on a server.
Most web hotels have a “WordPress in one Click” option. Just create the WordPress site. Give it a name. And you’re ready to go. The next steps are:
Install the theme (in the same way as you did on the local machine).
Install all the plugins you want to use.
As soon as this is ready, you go to your local machine. Enter the Dashboard > Tools > Export – and export all content.
Now you go to your online version of WordPress and choose import. Remember to check the box with import media files. If you do so the local images will be copied to the online media library.
Now your site is online, and ready for whatever purposes you or your clients may have.
FAQ
Sometimes things work fine, but now and then we run into troubled waters. In this section I have listed some common problems, we see again and again in the multimedia classes.
Problem: you try to install a theme or a plugin, and get a prompt where you are asked to use FTP. Solution: Check the folder permissions. Make sure, that the server has write and execute permissions in the folders.
Problem: I get a database connection error during WordPress install on MAMP. Solution: In MAMP the password and user is ‘root’.
Problem: I get a database connection error on XAMPP. Solution: On Windows the user is root and the password is blank. On Mac the user and password is root.
Problem: XAMPP crashes. Solution: Use MAMP … 😉
In my experience XAMPP has a steep learning curve, and often errors occur out of the blue.
So if you work on either Mac or Windows I’d recommend MAMP.
Here’s a short and handy tutorial about the Siteorigin PageBuilder. In Pagebuilder each row will get an id. Then each row will get an id in the Pagebuilder settings.
Now the video does not tell this, but I guess that Pagebuilder will set bookmarks on the webpage, as in:
<h2 id="row-about-us">About us ...</h2>
In the WordPress menu the internal links will be used. The menu will link to #row-about-us, and Pagebuilder will create markup somewhat like in this sample:
<a href="#row-about-us">About us</a>
Now onepagers tend to scroll in a cool slow way. You can do this via some JavaScript. I guess there’s a plugin for it too.
