Migrating to WordPress

Why I Migrated My HTML page to WordPress

The page was slow.  It took 20 seconds to load.
The ads I used to draw people to my page defeated the purpose of advertising.
The landing pages needed improvement.
The graphics needed improvement

What I've learned about WordPress in less than 24 hours
WordPress is a fancy version of Google Sites and other prepacked webpage building software - content management system (CMS) - that allows you design a website without needing to write code like HTML and CSS. It is built on PHP and MySQL.

The first steps are to decide the name (domain name) of your webpage and find a place where the website files and data will live (hosting).  The name of my current website is www.chicagoibsibd.org  I bought the name on in on DNSexit.  Our website is hosted on a LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) server.  When WordPress is downloaded what you get is a bunch of PHP files.  But these files do not reside on the computer you are sitting at.  The PHP files live on the server computer. These PHP files allow the front page of the website to talk with the server in a dynamic interactive way.  You can think of front end and back end to refer to what is going one relative to the person sitting surfing on their computer.

Theme & Created Pages
The theme that we selected was Twenty Eleven.  It is a good theme to pick if you want your page to be found by people surfing the net and Googling a particular word on your page.  I first started by creating a graphical header in Adobe Fireworks with free images found on stock xchng of a skyline.  I'd like to shrink down the size of the header - work in progess.Then I created 9 webpages and did a cut and paste of the text in the central part of the page.

Multisites and Domain Mapping ( Day 3 Octboer 19) I am using http://www.0ehrl1.com/ to create the WordPress  prototype site.  There is only one installation of WordPress on our server. At first we had only this one site, 0ehrli.com but now we want to have new websites and need to create subdomains. In addition to creating multisites, we have to map the domain to actual DNS subdomains.  We also created a child theme.

WAMP vs. LAMP and transferring files
In order to change the parent theme that comes with the Twenty Eleven and Twenty ten themes you have to have access to the wp-content > themes.  The Lynda.com files explain how to transfer files when WordPress is hosted on a Windows WAMP server.  In our case we have an Linux LAMP server and have to find a way for the front end developer, me, to pass my files to the LAMP server on the back end.  One option in FTP.  Another option might be Dreamweaver.

Plugins & Widgets
I installed a jetpack plugin after listening to the Lynda.com videos.  One of them was called a You Tube channel gallery. When I installed the jetpack it seemed to direct me to WordPress.com to login, which confused me, but after doing this all of the plugins I selected were there.

What I am Working on Now

1. YouTube Video on each page
2. Area where I can put an image
3. Link to Ning
4. Signup for Mailchimp

Day 2 of WordPress
I am watching the videos for WordPress 3: Building Child Themes.  Chapter 2.3 has to do with changing the header size and Chapter 5.1 has to do with inserting fixed sidebars.  When I purchased the Lynda.com package I ordered the supplemental material.  This was a good thing because these files (The New Cool) have a lot of prepackaged code that will allow you to easily change things. 

Where are my files?
Where the files are located is an interesting question.  This page explains it well. This is another with the template hierarchy.  How to create a Wordpress Theme from scratch.

Well I am going to take a break.  I need to learn how to log in to the LAMP server before I can proceed to modify my themes.
How do I place images and video in the sidebar?

Child Themes

How do I make a folder in the WordPress PHP files on the server?  Can't seem to do it.

I have now listened to most of the beginner Lynda.com  I am looking for how to make the header smaller.  Understanding the child themes seems to be the next step. This blog was good:

WordPress 3: Building Child Themes notes

Functions.PHP (Lynda.com) Child WordPress Intermediate
To change the size of the header you have to go in to themes and twenty ten (or elevent) folder and the functions.PHP file.  A function creates the header image.


Twenty eleven - make header image smaller and move to top (7 posts)
http://wordpress.org/support/topic/twenty-eleven-make-header-image-smaller-and-move-to-top

Day 1 Oct 16

1. Open up my website
2. Open up WordPress.org
3. Download the latest copy.
4. Find a place to put my website as a test location.  Eventually I need to move the WordPress page to that it resides at my domain location.
5. I need to ask the web guy who runs the basement lab how he organized things.
6. http://[websitedomain]/wp-admin
7. Create a subdirectory?  I did not do this
8. Select a Theme 2011
9. lynda.com  These were helpful
10. Quick Edit allows you to change the hierarchy of the pages.
11. I tried to use the showcase template with the posts on the 2011 theme but it didn't work quite right.
12. What do I do about the widget and post area?  I want to put a You Tube in there and the call to action to Join Ning and sign up for Mail Chimp.

Day 2
Lynda Chapter 12 Jetpack & Widgets
I seem to have missed the part where they explain how to install these.  I went to the list of plugins and I am looking over the ones that have 5 stars for a rating. Activated the plugin.

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/jetpack/

I want to change the size of the header on 2011

http://en.support.wordpress.com/featured-images/

I looked at this blog for some help.

http://www.wealthydragon.com/2011/12/01/convert-html-website-to-wordpress-process/

Eding CSS

http://en.support.wordpress.com/custom-design/editing-css/

Time spent:

Oct 16 4pm - 7:32 pm  going to library
Oct 17 6 am - 7 am
7:30 - 8:30 Getting Things Done pg 59