Starting out with Wordpress

Ben:

Ben:

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Name
Ben
Edit My Images
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Hey,
Some of you may have seen my previous topic about wordpress here

Well I've just bought a hosting package from Vidahost (thanks to members on here for the recommendation)

And a domain from them and linked it with the hosting package.
I've installed wordpress.
Going to take some getting used to (i've edited this post 3 times already after learning things!)
 
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Ok can someone please give me some info on how to remove different bits on the page and change the main title? :\
 
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I'm no expert with WP, my pref tool is joomla, and I'm still green with some aspects of that. However from what I've seen with WP a lot depends on the theme you choose, a lot are very customisable with lots of built in option where as other don't do very much.

I'd install a few different ones, goto the themes editor and see how different each can be, that should help you choose one that works for you.

avoid too much coding, you should be able to make a site that looks close to what you want without.

ps can't remember the exact names of the links you'll need but I'm sure someone with more knowledge than I will be round shortly, just wanted to at least try to point you in the right direction...
 
Thanks for that Andrew, I'll have a look at some different themes.
 
Everything in Wordpress is controlled by the Theme layouts, which should pull various settings from the database it works on;

Removing bits on a page - You'd need to edit the page.php template within the theme folder (wp-content -> themes -> your theme name)

Changing the main title is done via the admin panel, under Settings -> General, then changing the main title there.
 
Hi Ben
I am just in the process of completely rebuilding my site after changing hosts and updating the theme and I also have been experimenting.

Most of the changes are done in the "Appearance" "Editor" section with the php and css files - keep a clean backup of these in case you muck them up.

Find a theme you like so you have to do as little as possible to it :)
 
mattyh said:
Everything in Wordpress is controlled by the Theme layouts, which should pull various settings from the database it works on;

Removing bits on a page - You'd need to edit the page.php template within the theme folder (wp-content -> themes -> your theme name)

Changing the main title is done via the admin panel, under Settings -> General, then changing the main title there.
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Kerioak said:
Hi Ben
I am just in the process of completely rebuilding my site after changing hosts and updating the theme and I also have been experimenting.

Most of the changes are done in the "Appearance" "Editor" section with the php and css files - keep a clean backup of these in case you muck them up.

Find a theme you like so you have to do as little as possible to it :)
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So alot of the editing needs to be done using code?
I was told 'its easy, really simple etc' :( moo
 
It is possibly to create a password protected image library for customers to view images?
 
Kerioak said:
Now that is easy, create your page and then then in the Publish section there is a button for "visibility" - click on this and you can make it private and add a password
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Brilliant thanks! That was easy enough.
How about adding a gallery? :\
 
mattyh said:
Install a plugin called "nextGEN gallery"... Which does exactly what it says on the tin.

WRT the coding... Unfortunately changing the design of the page can only really be done using the code (unless someone's created an admin panel for the theme, of course :))
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Great thanks, just installed it. Not sure how to get it to work/appear/add images.
Do I just copy the code into the page I want it on?
EDIT: just tried that and found the answer is no :(
 
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The general workings are that you create a gallery (from the gallery menu on the left within the admin panel, which is where the whole of the NextGen gallery plugin is controlled from)

then add the images, either one by one, or a zip file, or uploading via FTP in bulk (do the first one to start with, makes it easier)

Then you have to add the shortcode to the page/post that you want to add the gallery to;

Code: 
 [nggalleryid=29]
 
Been having a play and found a video online which was also helpful.
Thanks a lot Matt!

I'm sure I'll soon have more questions!
 
Heres one...
Removing things like 'Follow Me' links and 'theme by Theme4Press' and 'Powered by WordPress' and 'Leave a comment' is that possible?
 
Ben: said:
Heres one...
Removing things like 'Follow Me' links and 'theme by Theme4Press' and 'Powered by WordPress' and 'Leave a comment' is that possible?
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Yes, although I suspect some of it will be required as part of the license of the theme (the theme by Theme4Press link).

The others will be removable via the editor panel in Appearance, but it will depend where they are as to which file they'll be in. "Powered by WordPress" is likely to be in footer.php.

You can turn off comments under Settings -> Discussion... but it may not get rid of the "Leave a comment" link - It'll probably change it to "Comments Closed" or something similar.
 
You can get rid of comments boxes - took me a few hours this afternoon to find out how as could not find anything in the Wordpress documentation and I was deleting and editing php and the css page but did it eventually by a much simpler method.

Go to "Pages" - select all the pages for which you do not want comments to appear and click on the "Bulk Actions" drop down box and select "Edit" then you can edit comments not to appear in the next page that comes up.
 
It's a two second job...

Look for
<?php comments_template(); ?>

Within both pages.php and single.php and change it to;

<?php // comments_template(); ?>

But, This will remove the comments form on ALL posts/pages and you won't be able to add them back in via the admin panel, so only do it if you're 100% sure you don't want ANY comments on your entire site.

I usually do it on page.php, but not single.php
 
Thanks for all that info. Managed to remove all the boxes etc :)
Still got a Leave comment icon on the home page, but that doesnt work.
On the home page I've posted saying welcome to my website etc, but it says stuff like 'Posted on May 1, 2011 by benadmin ' obviously due to being blog orientated.
Anyway to remove this? :\
 
One little thing I've found really useful is a Firefox addon (providing your browser is Firefox) is Firebug. When you right click on a item on the page and select "Inspect Element" it will bring up a popup showing you the line code your interested in, also a snippet of the css file for the line you are interested in with line number etc. You can make changes to see the temporary immediate effect. It saves you trawling through lines of code.

I don't know if there is a IE equivalent.
 
I've spent ages trying to find a suitable looking free theme but not really any luck.
I want it to look as little like a blog as possible.
I've found this design http://www.gallyapp.com/tf_themes/kin_wp/
But its $30.
Should I just go for that?
Or are there any designers on here that could come up with something similar for a good price?
 
There are so many free ones that can be adapted that I wonder if it is worth paying out when you are still learning how to use them. That one looks as if it has many options and you would need to work out what you wanted.

I don't want a blog either so am using it just for a web site

Is your site currently visible/available to view
 
Kerioak said:
There are so many free ones that can be adapted that I wonder if it is worth paying out when you are still learning how to use them. That one looks as if it has many options and you would need to work out what you wanted.

I don't want a blog either so am using it just for a web site

Is your site currently visible/available to view
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Hmm but from a free one is it possibly to make it look anything like the one in the link? :\

I spents hours last night trying to customise it, in the end I got an error when trying to log in and had to re install wordpress, therefore losing everything.

So at the moment there's nothing to view :\
 
Kerioak said:
I know that feeling - I started from scratch with a new install of wordpress as well yesterday.

I would think you could make something like that even using the default version, what is it about it that appeals to you, the side navigation, large pictures ?
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Both of those, the text effects, simply colours, the fact there's nothing that makes you think 'this is a blog/similar to a WordPress blog'

I know there's a Blog page, but I wouldn't have one.

You think its possible?!
 
Ben: said:
I've spent ages trying to find a suitable looking free theme but not really any luck.
I want it to look as little like a blog as possible.
I've found this design http://www.gallyapp.com/tf_themes/kin_wp/
But its $30.
Should I just go for that?
Or are there any designers on here that could come up with something similar for a good price?
Click to expand...

If your going to spend $30 then you another you could look at is elegantthemes.com but it's $39. They have quite a lot of themes that are designed to work with Wordpress, no harm in having a look as they do have some pretty cool looking themes. Support is pretty good too.
 
frank said:
If your going to spend $30 then you another you could look at is elegantthemes.com but it's $39. They have quite a lot of themes that are designed to work with Wordpress, no harm in having a look as they do have some pretty cool looking themes. Support is pretty good too.
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Thanks for that :)
 
Buy buying a theme,all you are really doing is paying someone to create the CSS page that tells the rest of the site what to do. If you knew CSS, you could make your page look any way you like from any of the free themes.

Buying a theme cuts out some legwork, but if you still dont know CSS or PHP, its not going to to be a magical cure to get the exact site you want, as you'll still need to adjust and edit the CSS and PHP do get it.

Ive recently installed wordpress just to have a play around with, but TBH Its too much hassle chopping and changing things around to get what I want, I might aswell just start from scratch and build it myself.
 
TCR4x4 said:
Buy buying a theme,all you are really doing is paying someone to create the CSS page that tells the rest of the site what to do. If you knew CSS, you could make your page look any way you like from any of the free themes.

Buying a theme cuts out some legwork, but if you still dont know CSS or PHP, its not going to to be a magical cure to get the exact site you want, as you'll still need to adjust and edit the CSS and PHP do get it.

Ive recently installed wordpress just to have a play around with, but TBH Its too much hassle chopping and changing things around to get what I want, I might aswell just start from scratch and build it myself.
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Ah I didn't realise there'd still be work to do.

By build one yourself.. you do mean write all the code from scratch?
 
Ben: said:
Ah I didn't realise there'd still be work to do.

By build one yourself.. you do mean write all the code from scratch?
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Yeah within reason. Its always easier to start with a base template with the minimal stuff stuff you always use, but apart from that most of it is hand written or at the least designed in Dreamweaver which then generates the appropriate code.

Although Ive been exceedingly lazy recently and the last 2 sites I've done have been template driven WYSIWYG type affairs with tweeks to the code by hand to get exactly what I wanted. I needed to bash a site out in a day and I just couldn't be bothered and the other had a built in e-commerce function so was just easier.

This is the one day one

www.westoils.co.uk

and the e-commerce one

www.earprotex.co.uk
 
Thanks for that Tom. Both of those sites look pretty good. Not bad for a days work! :)
 
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