The Complete Guide to Learning WordPress
Learning WordPress can be a very long road for an inexperienced programmer. This guide can help you go from being a programming illiterate to a freelance billionaire programmer. It is intended as an overview of the steps required to become a proficient WordPress developer. This guide can help both the experienced and the inexperienced to get familiar with WordPress.
Don’t believe the myths
When learning any field of programming (yes, you will have to), there are a lot of myths that come with it. A lot of this is hype from click bait articles that take advantage of the ignorant. So I’m just going to expose the three most persistent myths I see today:
- No, you CANNOT learn to program in 24 hours. Or a week. Or a month. In order to learn the entire world of programming, you must first become an immortal being with a clear schedule. He can learn some of the basics in 24 hours, but he’ll never be done learning new programming skills (unless he’s lazy).
- At the opposite end of the scale is a myth that you must be a genius gifted with the incredible powers of mathematics. There is nothing further from the truth. You’d be surprised how many potato heads one has to deal with in the field and how little actual math you’ll use.
- Perhaps my favorite: there’s no point in learning to code when there are tools to make websites. This is the most aggravating because it is the most difficult to explain. But in a nutshell, the question “why do I need to learn to code, if I have a WordPress theme?” can be answered with the following question “where would themes come from if there were no programmers”. Same with web development tools. There are no tools on planet earth that can write more tools except programmers. Also, any tool that exists or will exist comes with severe limitations. But that is a longer topic.
Yes, you have to learn the basics of programming.
Once again, you yell “Why do I need to learn programming? It’s WordPress!” I think the more you learn about WordPress, the more you’ll learn how limited it is.
Here is the secret. WordPress is a platform, not a web development tool. Which means that a lot of the heavy lifting still requires you to flex your brain a bit and code. Here are some problems you may run into if you don’t learn programming beforehand:
- My theme is awesome! But I hate the style of the widgets in the footer.
- I want to create a membership site and need x functionality, but no plugin exists.
- I want to create a membership site, but my plugins are conflicting.
- Turns out the theme I bought has a huge problem and I honestly think the theme developer is dead.
What would you do in these situations if you didn’t know how to program?
Now please learn the basics of programming.
Before you start your journey to learn HTML and CSS, you should take a moment and relax so I can throw a study program over your head.
The things you will need to learn, before returning are the following:
- HTML: The basic components of your website’s interface (the screen). Personal recommendation: Common mistakes can be corrected with a firm understanding of inline, inline – block, and block level elements, as well as a firm understanding of relative vs. absolute positioning.
- CSS: This is the secret sauce of your website. Imagine your HTML is a paint-by-numbers grid, and CSS is the paint. All websites use CSS.
- PHP: This is the black box of the website. Nobody sees it except you. It’s what actually creates all the functionality, thinks, and delivers the content of your website. This is what true “programming” is. Learn it.
- MySQL: Databases are where everything on your website is stored. You will need to learn how to safely interact with the database with PHP. Search for parameterized queries.
Once you come back from all that. we can start to dive into the basics of WordPress. An optional thing to learn is javascript. It’s something that’s great for animations or even delivering content to a user without them having to refresh a page. There may also be a time when you need to fix or update some javascript created by another developer.
WordPress setup
There are a couple of ways to install WordPress on your website. The easiest is through your cPanel account. Usually there is a program in your cPanel that will install WordPress for you. For example, QuickInstall has a one-click installation for WordPress. Another way is to download WordPress source files and upload them to your server via FTP.
After you install WordPress, you’ll want to log into your WordPress site to set things up. There are plenty of guides out there on how to set up your WordPress site through the backend, but the basics you’ll need to learn are as follows:
- Installing your site’s theme – Even if you plan to create your own theme, it’s still a good idea to set up someone else’s theme to base your work on. This will serve as a great starting point for your website.
- Familiarize yourself with plugins – they are easy to install and will provide most of the functionality of your website.
- Menus: Learn where they are and how to set them. You can create menus that can be used anywhere on your website.
- Widgets – Widgets should not be confused with plugins. Widgets are user interface elements (like a Twitter feed), while plugins are groups of files that can potentially make sweeping changes to the functionality of your sites.
- Learn the difference between pages and posts. These things have very different and separate purposes.
This will give you enough ammunition to set up a basic website. However, if you want something a little less basic, you’ll have to proceed.
How is the content delivered to the user?
It helps to know how WordPress takes your content and presents it to the end user.
If you’ve learned php, you probably know how a website is presented to the user. If not, and you’ve come this far, you’re a shameful human being and deserve a death by a thousand cuts. It sounds silly, but it is very useful to know how the browser interprets the data and what is the purpose of PHP to fill the content, how the website is compiled, etc.
Themes define the way WordPress presents content to a user. They do this with php files that serve as templates to display certain parts of your website, like a blog post page or the header. They also include CSS and php files and can even provide functionality to a website.
I highly recommend learning what you will need to provide in your themes. There are also certain rules that you need to follow if WordPress is going to recognize your theme. However, the main parts will be: the header, the index page, the sidebar, the footer, functions.php and the style sheet.
One more thing you might come across is page templates. Page templates are simply different ways to display any page on a site. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, search for “page template”, in fact, do it anyway.
Also learn about the types of posts. Everything on your website is a post type, be it pages, posts, or attachments. A page template is a template for a certain post type. Learning about post types can clear up a lot of confusion down the road.
There are lists of all the global variables that WordPress provides, ranging from the content you provide to users to information about the visitors themselves. Don’t bother memorizing them, just refer to them as you go and familiarize yourself with the kind of global variables WordPress provides you with. If you can’t find them, you may need to add the functionality yourself, either in the form of a plugin or simply in the function.php file. Global variables are essential in WordPress development.
accessories
Plugins allow you to add functionality to your website or others. There is actually a huge marketplace for WordPress plugins. It’s a great way to earn large amounts of cocaine and gain some reputation in the programming community.
Essentially, plugins are groups of files that alter or add functionality to websites. However, there are certain rules for setting up your files to be read by WordPress.
It’s also important to learn when to add things to functions.php instead of creating a plugin.
Hooks: Actions and Filters
Hooks will allow you to “hook” one of your functions into WordPress, so that it runs at a specific time. If you don’t use hooks, many kinds of functionality would not be possible. Trust me when I say that learning what they are and how to use them will save your life and unlock a world of possibilities.
Be sure to learn the difference between the two and how to use them. This knowledge will allow you to greatly alter the functionality of WordPress and will greatly open doors for the functionality of your site.
Actions are hooks that allow you to execute a function when a certain WordPress event occurs. For example, when you create a post, you might want to update a value in your database.
Filters allow you to modify data at certain times. When you set up a filter, WordPress will pass data through it before completing a task. If WordPress is about to display a login error, you can choose to change or modify that error message before it is presented to the user. Maybe something like “Stay back, hustler, this is my grandmother’s heirloom!” or “I don’t want your dirty eyes looking at my website, you filthy redneck hacker!”
practice
Naturally, for everything to sink in, you have to practice. However, if you want to be like me starting out, you can find a small job online and jump right in. The pressure should help him keep trying to learn. If you fuck with someone, you can always direct it to me.
However, if you want to take the safer route, I suggest you do the following:
Rent a small shared hosting package (you can spend a few bucks a month), grab a theme, and build a small blog website. (Make it something you would like to wear! In fact, wear it!).
You can also use a local server on your computer, if you don’t feel like spending money and really don’t want to share your work with anyone.
When you have learned how to use WordPress, start another small site. However, this time be a bit more ambitious, and this time, try to put all the functionality yourself. If you’re confused about something, you can always copy someone else’s work and learn from them.
Congratulations!
Yes that seems like a lot. It is. WordPress is a much broader theme than many people assume at first. However, if you take one bite at a time, you will eventually learn everything you need to know when it comes to building WordPress websites. It is a skill that is in high demand and does not require a degree. Keep connecting and you will see that it was worth it!
Hopefully this guide will help you become a solid WordPress developer.
