ACCD | Media Design Program

12:00 – 1:30 pm

What is WordPress?

We’re going to discuss how to use a Content Management System to create your Thesis Blogs. A content management system, commonly referred to as a “CMS” is “a computer application used to create, edit, manage, search and publish various kinds of digital media.” For the Thesis Blogs, we’ll use WordPress but there are many other CMS applications available such as Drupal, Joomla, and Expression Engine.

“WordPress is an open source blog publishing application. WordPress has a templating system, which includes widgets that can be rearranged without editing PHP or HTML code, as well as themes that can be installed and switched between. The PHP and HTML code in themes can also be edited for more advanced customizations. WordPress also features integrated link management; a search engine-friendly, clean permalink structure; the ability to assign nested, multiple categories to articles; multiple author capability; and support for tagging of posts and articles. Automatic filters that provide for proper formatting and styling of text in articles (for example, converting regular quotes to smart quotes) are also included. WordPress also supports the Trackback and Pingback standards for displaying links to other sites that have themselves linked to a post or article. Finally, WordPress has a rich plugin architecture which allows users and developers to extend its functionality beyond the features that come as part of the base install.” ¹

wordPress.com versus wordpress.org ²

The distinction between WordPress.com and WordPress.org can cause some confusion for people. Let’s clear it up.  WordPress.com is brought to you by some of the same folks who work on WordPress, the open source blogging software.  WordPress.com utilizes the same WordPress software which you can download at WordPress.org.  With WordPress.com the hosting and managing of the software is taken care of by the team here at Automattic.  With WordPress.org you need to install the software on your own server or with a 3rd party provider.

WordPress.com Benefits

• It’s free and much easier to setup
• Everything is taken care of: setup, upgrades, spam, backups, security, etc
• Your blog is on hundreds of servers, so it’s highly unlikely it will go down due to traffic
• Your posts are backed up automatically
• You get extra traffic from blogs of the day and tags
• You can find like-minded bloggers using tag and friend surfer
• Your login is secure (SSL) so no one can get into your account if you use wifi

WordPress.com Cons

• We provide 70+ themes (and adding more every day) which you can modify and edit the CSS, but you cannot run a custom theme*
• You can’t hack the PHP code behind your blog*
• You can’t upload plugins

* The VIP program on WordPress.com for high-traffic and high-profile sites allows you to run custom themes, custom PHP code, ad code, and WordPress plugins.

WordPress.org Benefits

• Ability to upload themes
• Ability to upload plugins
• Great community
• Complete control to change code if you’re technically minded

WordPress.org Cons

• You need a good web host, which generally costs $7-12 a month, or thousands of dollars per month for a high traffic site
• Requires more technical knowledge to set up and run
• You’re responsible for stopping spam
• You have to handle backups
• You must upgrade the software manually when a new version comes out
• If you get a huge spike in traffic (like Digg or Slashdot) you site will probably go down unless you have a robust hosting setup

How to Sign Up with WordPress.com

Video: How to sign up with WordPress.com

Free WordPress.com blogs come with 3000 megabytes (3GB) of space for storing uploaded files and images

The WordPress interface

Dashboard Blog Stats VIDEO: Customizing Dashboard VIDEO: Blog Stats Upgrades Upgrades Domains Posts Edit Add New (Draft, Schedule, Publish) Post Tags Categories VIDEO: Tags & Categories VIDEO: Excerpt & More feature Media Library Add New VIDEO: Creating Image Gallery VIDEO: Embedding YouTube Videos Links Edit Add New Link Categories VIDEO: Adding Links Pages Edit Add New Comments

Appearance Themes Widgets Extras Custom Header Edit CSS VIDEO: Flickr Widget Users Authors & Users Your Profile Tools Import Export Settings General Writing Reading Discussion Media Privacy Delete Blog OpenID Domains

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1:30 – 2:30 pm

Setting up MDP Thesis blog

Show-Hide Kitchen sink

1) Add sections / categories / tags
Research Statement (Page)
Process (Post with Category: Process)
Ideas (Post with Category: Ideas)
Context (Post with Category: Context)

2) Add navigation for sections
Add Category Widget to sidebar

3) Use of more tag
Add more tag

4) Add widgets

• Tag Cloud
• Text
  Student Name<br>
  Media Design Program<br>
  <a href=”mailto:student@artcenter.edu”>student@artcenter.edu</a><br>
  <a href=”http://www.artcenter.edu/mdp”>www.artcenter.edu/mdp</a>

• Flickr
• Links
• Search

5) Adding links

• external site
  http://www.nytimes.com
• internal page
  http://yourname.wordpress.com/permalink
• email link
  mailto:student@artcenter.edu

6) Adding Images:

• Gallery
• Flickr
  Adding Photo from Flickr to WordPress Blog

7) Adding Video:

• YouTube
  [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5H17fVAsZ0] replace id number
• Vimeo
  [vimeo vimeo.com/209188] replace id number
• QuickTime* : extra space required

8) Adding Sound

Must upgrade space to add sound files

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2:30 – 2:45 pm

Break

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2:45 – 3:30 pm

Using WordPress.org

Working with Plug-ins

• Galleria
  [galleria]
• NextGEN Gallery
• [nggallery id=1]
• Flash Video Player
  [flashvideo file="http://www.website.com/intro.flv" width=500 height=400 /]
  Get the Flash Player to see this player.

  http://mac-dev.net/blog/flash-video-player-plugin-customization/

Editing CSS

Editing php

Additional Resources

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3:30 – 4:00 pm

Q & A

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Notes:

¹ “WordPress.” Wikipedia. Web. 12 May 2009. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wordpress>.
² “WordPress.com vs. WordPress.org.” WordPress Support. 21 Sept. 2009. Web. 22 Sept. 2009. <http://support.wordpress.com/com-vs-org/>.

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