OptimWise - Web Design & Development Simpsonville/Greenville SC

WordPress All-In-One for Dummies by Lisa Sabin-Wilson

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

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A broadly informative WordPress book, covering installation, administration, publishing, SEO and social media, design, development, and Network/Multisite. Because it covers so many topics, it doesn't get very deep into any of them. You'll want to read more focused WordPress books (or websites) for more details.

I skimmed much of the book since I already knew it, or it was covered in the first edition.

Themes and theme frameworks

• Premium theme sources: iThemes, Organic Themes, WooThemes, Press75, Headway Themes, Commercial Theme Directory
• Free theme frameworks: Theme Hybrid, Thematic
• Premium theme frameworks: Carrington, Genesis, iThemes Builder, Headway

Plugin sources

• CodeCanyon: marketplace of thousands of plugins
• Gravity Forms: popular forms plugin
• iThemes: plugins including BackupBuddy
• Shopp: e-commerce
• WooThemes: plugins including WooCommerce
• WPMU DEV: commercial plugin shop

Plugins

• Plugin reviews and discussions: WPBeginner, WMPU
• jonradio Multiple Themes allows you to use different themes for different parts of a site.
• Image Widget lets you easily use images in widgets.
• Posts in Page lets you place posts inside pages.

Plugin development

• Turn error messages on by enabling WP_DEBUG in wp-config.php.
• Use add_shortcode in your primary plugin PHP file to create a shortcode.
• Shortcode names must be unique within a site, so use a name specific to your plugin (such as your name or your company's name).

WordPress Network

• When to use Network
  • When you want multiple sites and one installation.
  • When you want one codebase to make site maintenance easier.
  • When most of your plugins and themes are accessible to all sites.
• Networks work well on Apache, Nginx, and Lightspeed, but not IIS.
• Configuring Wildcard Subdomains
• Bulk Import Users plugin lets you import users into a Network. (Plugin seems outdated -Chad)
• Menus plugin lets you limit access to menus.
• Recent Global Posts Widget plugin lets you display posts from sites within network.
• WordPress MU Domain Mapping plugin lets you map domains to network sites.

Miscellaneous

• Images and graphics: iStockphoto, Dreamstime, Graphic River
• Use locate_template() in a child theme to replace a parent's template file.
• The embed shortcode lets you specify dimensions of embedded videos. See Embeds.