What you can do with Wordpress [Part 1 - the Basics]
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With the new 2.0.6 Wordpress release I realized that Wordpress is powering most of this website, and that there is so much you can do with this simple blogging platform. Over the next few posts I am going to discuss what you can do with Wordpress starting in the very simplist form.
Where to start
If you are looking to install Wordpress, I recommend this post, however the people at Wordpress also spell it all out with their five minute installation. Installing Wordpress is pretty simple, but there are a few things you need to know to control your installation.
I recommend starting with your permalinks, by default Wordpress makes your stories links look like this: http://tech.zamwi.com/?p=123
This can be changed easily by going to the Options tab and clicking the Permalinks button underneath. There you can customize your links, or use one of the common options, like the one I use: http://tech.zamwi.com/2007/01/07/sample-post/
The "Links" tab is another thing you should click before you actually start blogging. I use the Links section to manage some navigation around my website and link to my RSS feed, but you can also create a Blogroll or link to whatever else you wish.
Looks do matter
There are TONS of themes for Wordpress, it is amazing. But in my year of using the blogging
platform I have found that K2 is the best, although I may be a little biased since I am most familiar with the code behind the theme.
Having a look that separates you from the rest of the Wordpress bloggers is very important. You can find themes everywhere, then download them and upload it to the wp-content/themes folder and go the the “Presentation” tab and activate the theme. Themes have become more customizable with out coding, but you can mess with the CSS or PHP behind the theme to change them.
I will discuss more on themes in another part of “What you can do with Wordpress”.
Finally, let us write
Once you have your look you should start to write, click the “Write” tab. You will notice that Wordpress has several buttons, including a block quote option, Image insert option, bold, italicize, strike through, and the more tag. Each of can be used in writing a post.
In addition to what you see, you can add some code to your posts. The HTML tags go within the the <> brackets, I add “BR” to do line breaks, “CODE” to add HTML code to blog posts, and “H4″ to add headlines within my posts.
Wrapping up the basics
So now you know about the very basics of using Wordpress, I have so much more to share with you, but I had to start with the first steps. My next post will be all about themes.
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2 Comments
What you can do with Wordpress [Part 2 - Themes] at zamwi.com
January 15th, 2007
at 4:14pm
[...] In part one of “What you can do with Wordpress” I examined the very basics, and even talked a little bit about how to activate and use themes, but today we are going to go more in depth with Wordpress development. [...]
What you can do with Wordpress [Part 3 - Plugins] at zamwi.com
January 16th, 2007
at 11:26am
[...] We started with the basics, then discussed how to get your blog looking good, but today we look at what is required to go above and behind Wordpress, plugins. We will start with how to install and Wordpress plugin, and then I will list the seven plugins you can not live without! [...]