LIS 390W1A :: Lab 16: Introduction to Wordpress

Assignment

With the successful installation of Wordpress, it is now time to familiarize ourselves with Wordpress. In lecture, we went over the different aspects of Wordpress. In this lab, your job is to familiarize yourself with the Wordpress administrative interface.

To login to the Wordpress Administrative Interface, you'll need to go to the wp-admin subdirectory, which can be found in a location similar to the following link (remember to replace "netid" with whatever you named your folder on the I: drive):

http://courseproject.lis.illinois.edu/2013fa/lis390w1a/netid/wordpress/wp-admin/

And remember for when you SSH into the classroom servers, the path (location) on the I: drive of your files is (again, remember to replace "netid" with whatever you named your folder on the I: drive):

/homei/projects/lis/2013fa/lis390w1a/netid/
Add 3-5 posts in the posts section and see how they show up on the wordpress website. Content is not important.
Create some new post categories, and assign posts to these categories.
Add 2-5 pages, and see how they display. Again, content is not important.
Optional: Add some media and get it to display somewhere on the site (e.g., as a link in a post).
Write at least 4 comments on 2 or more posts. See how they display. Make sure some comments are "replies".
Check for Updates under the "Dashboard" menu item (you should be up to date, but check anyway).
Under "Appearance" install at least 5 different themes. Three of these must be from the Wordpress directory. At least one of them must be installed manually via copying the files into the Wordpress "themes" directory using SSH or WinSCP or whatever program you desire. At least one of them must be installed automatically through the Wordpress admin interface. You may use themes not in the Wordpress directory if you so choose for two of the themes.
Select your favorite theme and customize it some. If the theme you choose is not customizable, then customize the default "Twenty Thirteen" theme.
Under "Plugins" install and activate at least 5 different plugins. Three of these must be from the Wordpress directory. At least one of them must be installed manually via copying the files into the Wordpress "plugins" directory using SSH or WinSCP or whatever program you desire. At least one of them must be installed automatically through the Wordpress admin interface. You may use plugins not in the Wordpress directory if you so choose for two of the plugins, but be careful in selecting them.
Under "Appearance" play with the existing or newly installed widgets, shuffle them around, see what they do, etc.
Add a new user or two to your site, and play with the permissions. (This can be a fake person using a spam email address you have.) To log in multiple times you should be able to use private (Firefox) or incognito (Chrome) windows to log in to your Wordpress site as someone else. If this doesn't work, just open up a new browser (I like using Opera for this).
Check the "Settings" in the admin panel, and customize the installation to your preferences.

Manually Downloading and Installing Themes and Plugins

Manually downloading and installing Wordpress themes and plugins are pretty much the same process with a few differences:

The Wordpress directory of Themes can be found here.
The Wordpress directory of Plugins can be found here.
Click here for he instructions for manually installing themes.
Click here for he instructions for manually installing plugins.
Themes go in the "wp-content/themes" directory whereas plugins go in the "wp-content/plugins" directory.

For the GSLIS infrastructure, the process for downloading themes and plugins is as follows:

Go to the theme or plugin directory. Search and find a theme you like. Try lots of different search terms, be creative. Unless you know exactly what theme you want. Then just type in its name. You can google to find recommendations of good Wordpress themes.
On the theme page, there should be a download link on the right in red. Either click it or right-click and save link as to save it to your computer. It will likely be a zip file.
Copy it from your computer to the themes or plugins directory in your Wordpress installation on the GSLIS I: drive. The approximate path (location) of the folder should be as follows, but don't forget to replace "netid" with your folder name, or "themes" with "plugins" if you are installing a plugin:

/homei/projects/lis/2013fa/lis390w1a/netid/wordpress/wp-content/themes/

If you choose to use the command line to copy, do:
1. Open two terminal windows. In window A find the compressed (zipped) theme or plugin file you downloaded. In window B log into the classroom server (using your real NetID, not "netid"):
```
% ssh netid@classrm02.lis.illinois.edu
```
2. In window B, go to the Wordpress themes or plugin directory and then execute "pwd" to make sure you are in the right place, e.g. (replace "netid" with your real NetID, replace "themes" with "plugins" if downloading plugins and not themes):
```
% cd /homei/projects/lis/2013fa/lis390w1a/netid/wordpress/wp-content/themes/
% pwd
```
3. Some themes and plugins are zipped in their own directory the way Wordpress is, some themes and plugins are not. It can get messy if you unzip/decompress a lot of files into the wrong directory. Therefore, if you don't know how the file was compressed/zipped, then you want to decompress/unzip it into its own directory because deleting all the excess files in the main directory can be a huge pain and cause serious errors if you make mistakes (like deleting already working themes or plugins). Therefore, if you don't know how the compressed files are stored, create a directory using the plugin or theme name in window B:
```
% mkdir themeorpluginname
% cd themeorpluginname
% pwd
```
4. In window A copy the theme or plugin file over to the GSLIS I: Drive (replace "netid" with your real NetID, replace "themes" with "plugins" if downloading plugins and not themes, and replace themename with the name of the folder you created if you created one in the last step):
```
% scp filename.zip netid@classrm04.lis.illinois.edu:/homei/projects/lis/2013fa/lis390w1a/netid/wordpress/wp-content/themes/themename/
```
5. In window B check to make sure the file appeared, and then unzip/decompress it, e.g.:
```
% ls
filename.zip
% unzip filename.zip
[...]
% ls
[...]
```
6. If you created a new directory and the file unzipped into its own directory (likely the same as the directory name you created), then you will need to copy the files up a directory so that they are not in the wrong place. To do this most reliably, you will need to be in the directory you created, e.g. (replacing what should be replaced--use the pwd command to figure out what directory you are currently in):
  
  /homei/projects/lis/2013fa/lis390w1a/netid/wordpress/wp-content/themes/themename/
  
  You will then need to move the directory up a directory and get rid of the now empty directory. However, you need to be careful to avoid naming conflicts. Therefore, if your directory is the same name as the unzipped directory, use the following commands:
```
% cd themename
% ls
% mv * ../
% ls
% cd ..
% ls
% rmdir themename
% ls
```
  Otherwise use:
```
% ls
% mv themename ../
% ls
% cd ..
% ls
% rmdir yourdirectoryname
% ls
```
7. Now go to your admin panel and activate your theme or plugin to make sure it works.

Submission

For this assignment, you will need to turn in the following via email:

A link to your Wordpress installation.
A link to your write-up, which must include:
- A screen shot of your Post categories in the admin panel of your Wordpress installation.
- A screen shot of your Themes page in the admin panel of your Wordpress installation.
- A screen shot of your Widgets page in the admin panel of your Wordpress installation. Include several if you need to scroll down to include all of the sections on the page.
- A screen shot of your Plugins page in the admin panel of your Wordpress installation.
- If you could not customize your chosen Theme, then screenshots of the customized "Twenty Thirteen" theme.
- A screen shot of your Users page in the admin panel of your Wordpress installation.
- A screen shot of any Settings you changed in the admin panel of your Wordpress installation.
- Captions for each of these screenshots that explain what they are and what you did. These can be relatively short.

Grading Criteria

Out of 25 points total.

Did you include everything I asked for above? 15 points.
Did you turn in your write-up and did you take enough screenshots and include enough text for me to see what you did that is not obvious from the current state of your Wordpress installation? 6 points
Does the write-up validate both HTML & CSS? Did you include validation links? 4 points.