One: Install WordPress at Your Own Domain
For this exercise, I want you to use your Host Company Control Panel to install WordPress at your own domain at the following location:
https://yourdomain.com/publishingclass/demowp
If you already have a WordPress installation at your current domain, ask your host company asap if your hosting package allows you to have additional installations on the same domain. If it doesn’t, get in touch.
In the installation process, use your real email address for the admin user. That way, if you forget the password, you can get it mailed to you.
In that installation, make five posts. Each one will be the text of one of this year’s PRM articles. Each post must have at least one image, from this year’s magazine.
However, each post must be assigned to the author who wrote it. This means that in addition to posts, you have to make additional users for your site.
Each user is supposed to have a different email address, so just use fake ones for the additional authors. However, make the password of each user the same, so that it’s easy to remember. If you forget that password, you will have to login as the admin user to change it.
Feel free to customize the installation any way you want.
For two bonus marks, use your host company’s control panel and FAQ pages to figure out how to password-protect the demowp folder. Note: Do not use the WordPress protected-post feature to do this. This is outside of WordPress.
This is something you commonly will do in order to put work online for client approval without sharing it with the entire world.
If you do this, however, make sure that one of the IDs that can access that directory is kevinmcmillan with a password of ihatenickelback — make sure that that name and password are exact, or else I won’t be able to mark your site (other than by giving you a zero). As well, make sure that you password-protect the correct directory.
This is due Tuesday, June 27th.
Two: PRM Theme Install and Configuration
Do some research and find a free magazine-style theme available in the WordPress theme directory. Do NOT use one from outside the WordPress system. For security reasons, it is very important that you know exactly where your theme came from.
Install the theme in the same site you used for assignment one.
Add five more stories, each with their own actual author. Make sure that you have at least three categories, taken from the magazine departments. Each story must belong to an appropriate category.
Incorporate PRM-related video from YouTube.
The site must have the following characteristics:
- 10 intelligently-formatted posts, each with at least content three tags. Note: by tags, I mean content tagging, not HTML tags. Use appropriate HTML elements as the content needs.
- Each post must have a feature image. By the term feature image, I mean in the WordPress sense, not in any more vague way. The theme must take advantage of feature images. Depending on the sizes of images required by the theme, this could get tricky. The feature image does not have to match the story.
- Each post must have at least one non-feature image.
- Each post must identify the author.
- No post may belong to the “uncategorized” category. Make sure that you have deleted the sample post and sample page, too.
- 1 page called “about” that gives information about Pacific Rim Magazine.
- 1 page called “gallery” with 9 or more images displayed in gallery form.
- 1 page called “videos” with PRM-related videos from Youtube
- A graphic header banner
- A menu which includes your three categories; your about, gallery, and video pages; your gallery page, and a link to langaraprm.com.
- An appropriate sitename and tagline
- Commenting turned off site-wide
The purpose of this exercise is to get you used to the basics of the WordPress dashboard and the software’s interface conventions.
The “about us” page text can be taken from LangaraPRM, the college website, or any other reputable source.
This is due Saturday, July 9th.
Three: Themed Portfolio (or Otherwise) Site
Once you get the mark for the second assignment from me, delete the PRM-themed site made for Assignment Two.
For the last assignment, set up a new WordPress site at the root level of your own domain. This can be a portfolio site, or if you have other ideas about it, get in touch.
You have three options for this assignment. In order of challenge level and mark potential, they are:
Option A: Use A Theme from the WP Theme Repository
Option B: Make A Child Theme
A child theme “piggybacks” on the functionality and (typically) the appearance of a parent website, while using additional styles and possibly template files to modify the parent theme’s functionality, appearance, or both.
At minimum, a child theme will have a style.css file and a functions.php file.
If you choose option B, you will need to read the following documents:
Option C: Make Your Own Theme
If you choose option C, you should use a “starter” theme like Underscores.
Regardless of the option chosen, you should obviously make a site that’s responsive.You should have a contact form. You should have a search field. You should have content attractively displayed. You should make decisions about file sizes and other design considerations in such a way as to maximize the impact of the site, on a range of devices and connection speeds.
You will hand in the following items:
- A webloc file pointing to your site on the web. Definitely test that it actually works.
- A Duplicator archive and installer file. Make the duplicator file from your local install, not from your live site. That way, you’re not copying your live site’s database name, user, and password.
This is due Thursday, August 04. If you have a lot of LangaraPRM duties at this time, small extensions are possible.