It’s always fun to do a little show-and-tell. So class, today I want to show you my latest WordPress site. It’s for the IEEE EMC 2009 Symposium that our company, ETS-Lindgren is serving as one of the principal hosts. The site is just gaining steam and will have some pretty nifty code features in terms of scheduling, interactivity, visual tours etc. The graphic design was outsourced which was a real help in getting things moving. The niftiest feature on the site so far is the promo video which is a nice look at Austin. I had the pleasure of working with a local studio to manage and provide the creative direction for the project. The video imported nicely into Flash with progressive download enabling a higher resolution than embedding the video. This method of import resulted in a fairly nice end product for the web. The event takes place next summer so I’ll do a revist to the site sometime down the line when there’s more to talk about.

Categories or tags are connect-the-dot labels that group content from multiple posts together. It stands to reason that if there are three or more related posts, a category could tie them together.

As I stripped away useless categories, I discovered redundant/like categories that I combined. There was also a couple categories such as "writing" for which I knew I had many posts but only one was tagged.

As I move forward with posts, I will for the most part categorize retrospectively after I have three or more like posts. It’s really a simple idea but one that helps solidify the concept in my mind.

Setting up WordPress websites has become a regular part of my work. Much more than just for blogs, the platform is ideal for rapidly launching sites. In fact, nine out of ten WP sites I launch are non-blogging sites. I thought for my sake and for others who are looking for a checklist for what needs to be done to setup a WordPress website, I’d punch out a basic checklist for the process. This may get quite lengthy, but hopefully it will be a helpful resource to make sure all the bases are covered.

Hosting

• Search for and select domain an open domain.
• Sign-up with host and document access information.
• Setup ftp access and document access information.
• Setup MySQL database and document access information.
• Create sub-folder on host with the same name as domain (This allows easy launching of additional sites on same host) and point domain to sub-folder.

WordPress Install

• Download and unzip latest version of WordPress.
• Save wp-config-sample.php as wp-config and edit database access information in the top of the document. The documented info from your host provider, i.e. database name, host, username and password should be entered.
• Upload WordPress and go to the domain address in the browser.
• Click to install and be sure to copy the temporary Admin password into notepad and log-in to instigate the installation.
• Immediately change the Admin password to something familiar so that you don’t lock yourself out of WordPress.

Basic WordPress Configuration

• During installation check the "I would like to block search engines, but allow normal visitors" during the configuration process. To change the setting later go to "Settings" under the Privacy link and change the option to "I would like my blog to be visible to everyone, including search engines…".
• Search for and upload a theme to modify. For CSS gurus who want to configure I highly customized site, I recommend using the Sandbox theme. Not a lot of bells and whistles, but it provides a strip-down template to build from scratch.
• Change the Permalink. Under settings in WP 2.5+ go to Permalinks and change the default. My favorite is the simple Custom Structure: /%postname%/.
• Write a Page called "Home" and set it as the default homepage. Under "Settings" click on "Reading" and for "Front page displays" click "A static page" and select "Home" for under the "Front page" drop-down.
• Setup the basic landing pages and sub-pages for the site. When a sub-page is created, under "Page Parent" select the parent page.
• Delete the site Description. In most cases I have no need for the "Tagline" that is used for blogs. I’ll add-in my own meta tags later. Go to "Settings" which brings-up "General Settings" and delete the "Tagline".

Install Plug-ins

• Download the FCKEditor for WordPress plugin. Unzip and upload folder to wp-content/plugins/. Then activate the plugin. This will instigate a much improved wysiwyg editor for pages and posts.
• Download and install the WordPress Database Backup plugin. This nifty plugin can schedule to email you a backup of the database on a weekly basis. You will still need to download your site periodically, but what an amazing function to capture the content from the site.
• Download and instlal cforms II an amazingly powerful forms configurator. This plugin is the most robust configurator I’ve found which both drops form submissions to a user-friendly database on the site as well as sends email submissions to the designated manager of the contacts.
• For sites requiring mobile access WordPress Mobile Edition plugin detects mobile users and serves-up the page in readable mobile format.
• The Search Pages plugin enables the search function to return results from both pages and posts.
• Install Google Analytics for web stats.

Design the Theme

• Create a back-up of the site before beginning to tweak the design.
• For a simple, straightforward site: replace the header image, modify color scheme, font treatment and spacing as needed.
• Tweak the navigation to display pages and ditch the other widgets except the search form.  If hard-coded changes are needed in the navigation, start by inspecting the header.php,  functions.php and possibly sidebar.php files. These will most likely contain the code for the menu.
• Populate the site with enough content including images to get a feel for how well the navigation and flow of the site works.
• Make adjustments to accomodate what is stipulated in the scope document. If you are working with a client, a scope document will save you grief as you will have the stipulated requirements for the site. This will help scope creep to get out of hand.

Before Going Live

• Create an account for content managers.
• Orient the user with the site with basic update training.
• Check for browser compatibility in major and current search engines. There’s much debate on this subject. Generally I ensure at least the current and previous versions of FireFox and IE work well.
• Go back to the Privacy setting and enable search engines to find the site.
• Spell check and surf the site looking for content or graphical errors. Ideally, it’s good to ask other folks to hit the site as well.
• Use the free online ad credits the host gives with a new account to help launch the site and emphasize to the client that ranking in the engines takes time.

There’s the initial run-down. This is by no means an exhaustive list. Depending on requirements the design phase could become quite lengthy. There are also a boat load of other plugins, but those are the most common ones I use for a typical configuration. I may continue to add items down the line as they come to mind. Any good suggestions will be added as well.

• WordPress, Much More than Blogging Software
• Powerful WordPress Include Hacks

The site, which will be launched in the next couple of weeks, has several hundred pages going several levels deep. It is definitely a good example of how far one can extend WordPress as a content management platform.

My overall take on the platform is fairly positive. For anyone with a decent knowledge and sense for development, it offers some built-in components that allow for creative and flexible applications:

• Custom Fields. This powerful feature allows for populating either viewable data or variables for custom apps.
  • In one case the name and address of a teacher was published to the page with a custom field.
  • In another case custom fields were used to populate the variables needed to query and display rows from a spreadsheet. This enabled a very efficient application of a custom application.
• Page Templates. I have not found a really good plug-in yet that provides a rock-solid way of inserting code into a WordPress page. My biggest beef with WordPress is it’s inability to run PHP natively. Page Templates provide a good alternative for including a file or application to the page. They also work nicely for redundant information on multiple pages.
• Parent-Child Relationships. For the most part I’m very satisfied with parent-child relationships in WordPress. It handles multiple levels and I have not yet seen any indication of a ceiling for the number of possible pages one could publish. That said, the interface for parent-child assignment is through a single drop-down selector. You can imagine how unweildy this could get after a point. After a couple hundred pages WordPress also does not display all pages in the Manage section. It’s not a deal breaker per se as pages can be searched with a filter or edited by navigating through the site directly. Still, it reveals some limitations.

WordPress shines brightly for small scale sites. This specific client is looking towards expanding with a multiplicity of sites rather than scaling-up this one site. For that reason I believe the platform will serve them well.

One simple and powerful function is to use an if statement to test a condition for a specific page and then include a file if it is true. This enables you to post a graphic or have a block of text show-up in locations on the page that are not defined explicitly within a sidebar for instance.

First example, the simple conditional include file

If I wanted a button, block of text or any other feature to show-up just in the sidebar, header or any other part of the page, I could slip-in this short piece of code:

<?php if (is_page(‘portfolio’))
{include(‘wp-includes/includedfile.php’); } ?>

The first line "is_page" is followed by " ‘portfolio’ " which delineates the page on which it should show-up. If I wanted it to show on the home page, it should simply be "is_home()". The path "wp-includes" is where I decided to stick the included file and "includedfile.php" would be renamed to a relevant file name for its purpose. The file would be a standard php file format, which can be as simple as a text file. This example assumes that you are using a permalink structure such as simple /%postname%/ as apposed to a number ID.

Second example, include file for a section of your site

 If we decide to get a little more estute and have a multi-tiered site with sub-pages, we can have the sub or child pages of the Portfolio page include a file. This could be a breadcrumb navigation or an image for instance.

<?php global $post;
if ($post->post_parent == 33 )
 {include(‘wp-includes/includedfile.php’); } ?>

In this example the parent page is necessarily delineated by the page ID even if you are using a different permalink structure. The "==" asks a question in an integer format meaning it’s asking a mathematical question; is the parent’s ID 33? If the answer is yes, then include the file, if not then ignore. (The page parent is assigned to the page when writing or editing the page in the right-hand column).

These are just a few quick examples of how to extend a template a bit with some very basic php code. For those very new to coding, this may be a bit cryptic, but if you need some help or have any questions fire away as I’m always glad to help.

In addition to my continued development of ets-lindgren.com, the main website for ETS-Lindgren, I’ve been a busy beaver at work on some key projects. In October we launched a new marketing initiative for WiMAX Radiated Performance Testing (WiMAXRPT) which entailed a website and flash video launched from conception to production in a couple of weeks using a WordPress platform at wimaxrpt.com.

A Prime Example of a WordPress Project

As a freelance project, I’ve been tasked to revamp the site onedayacademy.com. The current site as of this posting is quite common to many web 1.0 sites, created with online tools with static information to distribute information:

The initial visual prototype starts with a stream-lined, clean and reductionist approach. While the end result may go through some cosmetic adjustments, this basic design gives me the basic architecture and layout to start the development process.

When I started into this project, I by-passed WordPress. My initial research was centered on Drupal, Joomla and other CMS platforms. As I delved more into the scope requirements of the site and potential extensibility of WordPress, WordPress emerged as the leading contender for the project.

I’m certain there are many developers who would argue otherwise. But here are a few key factors in my decision:

1. I know WordPress very well. While you could call it a cop-out, given my short time-line it looks to be a solid choice for the development of this specific site.
2. WordPressMU. WordPressMU is a very powerful install of WordPress that allows a non-techie admin to setup new users and blogs on the fly. This was a critical requirement for the site. Being an academic environment, it allows all faculty members to have their own website/blog.
3. The WordPress community is impressive. I’m blown away by the rapid development of new plug-ins and functions being rolled daily in the community. The developer community is a huge factor in selecting any CMS platform.

So there you have it. I’ll be blogging some of the step-by-step processes to developing this site as I go along. This may prove instructive for some and certainly handy as one persons process for developing a project.

What are your development experiences with WordPress or other CMS platforms?

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A good number of sites make the topical feeds option very obvious. Sites such as:

1. Craigslist.org. I like to keep an eye on the Austin real estate market. I added the feed – http://austin.craigslist.org/rfs/index.rss to my reader.
2. FastCompany.com. Rather than combing through all of the articles, I subscribed to the FC Experts feed -  http://feeds.feedburner.com/fastcompany/experts.

Other sites are not as obvious in however in providing topical feeds, but can be utilized nonetheless. Sites such as:

1. YouTube.com. Perhaps you want to collect media along by a certain search string. I thought it interesting to monitor what was published for CSS and HTML. I added the feed – http://youtube.com/rss/tag/css+html.rss to my reader. The search "css+html" is the query string that returns those videos. You can add your own string of words. For instance you could put "jimmy+buffett" to track one of my favorite musicians.
2. Flickr.com. For online publication it is helpful to keep an eye on photos along certain topics. Living in Austin, I’m curious what photos are being taken from my hometown. I added the feed – http://flickr.com/services/feeds/photos_public.gne?
   q=austin+texas&format=rss_200 to my reader. Again, you can replace the string "austin+texas" with your query string of choice.
3. Blog topics. Lastly, if you want to follow a specific topic for a WordPress blog such as the ever useful productivity tips on thoughtsparks.net, you can subscribe to http://www.thoughtsparks.net/category/productivity/feed in your feed reader. That way if you would like to by-pass my meandering thoughts on other topics, you’ll get just the meat you are wanting to extract.

As you begin to explore other sites and blog platforms you’ll discover similar hacks for getting the select information in your grid of interest.

Do you user other RSS hacks that are useful?

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