Book Image

WordPress 5 Cookbook

By : Rakhitha Nimesh Ratnayake

4 (1)

Book Image

WordPress 5 Cookbook

4 (1)

By: Rakhitha Nimesh Ratnayake

Overview of this book

WordPress has been the most popular content management system (CMS) for many years and is now powering over 30% of all websites globally. With the demand for WordPress development and skilled developers ever-increasing, now is the best time to learn WordPress inside out. This book starts with simple recipes for configuring WordPress and managing basic platform features. You’ll then move on to explore how to install and customize WordPress plugins, widgets, and themes. The next few chapters cover recipes for content and user-management-related topics such as customizing the content display, working with content types, using the new Gutenberg editor, and customizing editorial workflow for building advanced blogs. As you advance, you’ll learn how to use WordPress as an application framework as well as a platform for building e-commerce sites. This WordPress book will also help you optimize your site to maximize visibility on search engines, add interactivity, and build a user community to make the site profitable. Finally, you’ll learn how to maintain a WordPress site smoothly while taking precautions against possible security threats. By the end of the book, you’ll have the tools and skills required to build and maintain modern WordPress websites with the latest technologies and be able to find quick solutions to common WordPress problems.

Preface

Who this book is for

What this book covers

To get the most out of this book

Setting Up WordPress and Customizing Settings

Setting Up WordPress and Customizing Settings

Technical requirements

Managing media files with the Media Library

Setting up the discussion process

Creating and managing a privacy policy

Customizing default WordPress emails

Configuring the structure of permalinks

Setting up WordPress Multisite

Creating a new site in a multisite network

Managing multisite themes and plugins

Cloning a site in a multisite installation

Free Chapter

Customizing Theme Design and Layout

Customizing Theme Design and Layout

Technical requirements

Using the theme customizer

Working with Custom CSS in live preview

Using a custom page as a home page

Creating a child theme

Styling navigation menus

Creating conditional navigation menus

Adding a video header to the theme

Using conditional tags to control content display

Creating page templates from scratch

Creating a custom posts list template

Creating a custom 404 error page

Using Plugins and Widgets

Using Plugins and Widgets

Technical requirements

Managing widgets in widget areas

Creating a simple widget from scratch

Creating additional widget areas

Displaying conditional widgets with built-in tags

Displaying widgets inside of posts and pages

Modifying plugin files with the built-in Plugin Editor

Working with custom PHP codes

Manually deactivating plugins

Customizing WordPress plugins with actions and filters

Publishing Site Content with the Gutenberg Editor

Publishing Site Content with the Gutenberg Editor

Adding and removing Gutenberg blocks

Using the Visual and Code editors with the block editor

Creating reusable Gutenberg blocks

Styling built-in content blocks

Embedding content from external services

Simplifying block editing with Gutenberg tools

Adding a post grid with Gutenberg

Adding a contact form using Gutenberg

Managing Users and Permissions

Managing Users and Permissions

Technical requirements

Enabling new user registrations

Managing user roles and permissions

Assigning user roles to existing users

Creating a custom role and setting up a default role

Improving user profiles with additional fields

Managing the visibility of the admin toolbar

Adding custom features to the user list

Displaying online users

Adding email activation for new user accounts

Switching users

Displaying recently registered users

Creating a frontend user list and search

Setting up a Blogging and Editorial Workflow

Setting up a Blogging and Editorial Workflow

Technical requirements

Publishing and scheduling blog posts

Displaying author profiles in posts

Enabling frontend post publishing

Modifying a user list to show author publishing details

Managing custom post statuses

Setting up a discussion between authors and editors

Splitting a single post into multiple parts

Creating private posts for specific users

Adding ratings to blog posts

Podcasting with WordPress

WordPress as an Application Framework

WordPress as an Application Framework

Technical requirements

Managing advanced data with custom post types

Creating and managing advanced post fields

Working with WordPress loop

Displaying advanced post fields

Restricting post/page content with shortcode

Capturing data with dynamic forms

Creating custom routes

Storing custom data in existing tables

Creating and managing custom tables

Using the REST API

Improving Usability and Interactivity

Improving Usability and Interactivity

Technical requirements

Creating a mobile-friendly site

Adding print, PDF, and email buttons to posts

Customizing WordPress search

Displaying a frontend login form

Optimizing images

Lazy loading posts with Ajax

Highlighting the search term in the search results

Creating breadcrumbs for better navigation

Adding an image gallery to pages

Allowing testimonials on your site

Integrating a forum into your site

Building E-Commerce Sites with WooComerce

Building E-Commerce Sites with WooComerce

Technical requirements

Setting up an e-commerce site with WooCommerce

Creating and displaying a product

Creating orders and managing order statuses

Displaying WooCommerce products on custom pages

Building custom product types

Customizing the shop template

Customizing the product page template

Troubleshooting WordPress

Troubleshooting WordPress

Technical requirements

Configuring error logs and displaying errors

Fixing the WSoD

Resolving conflicts in maintenance mode

Manually resetting user passwords

Fixing slow WordPress sites

Fixing issues with cached content

Resolving WordPress core database issues

Resolving JavaScript errors

Fixing issues caused by theme/plugin upgrades

Handling Performance and Maintenance

Handling Performance and Maintenance

Technical requirements

Limiting post revisions

Creating and scheduling database backups

Restoring database backups

Tracking site activities

Identifying and resolving broken site links

Backing up site files and uploads

Cleaning unused data from the database

Setting up maintenance mode

Migrating WordPress sites to new servers

Migrating from Drupal to WordPress

Migrating from Joomla to WordPress

Improving Site Security

Improving Site Security

Technical requirements

Upgrading the WordPress version

Disabling plugin and theme file editing

Protecting backend logins by limiting login attempts

Creating automatically expiring user passwords

Securing user accounts

Forcing logout for all users

Protecting user accounts with two-factor authentication

Protecting private sites with a global password

Limiting site access to certain IPs

Securing database user accounts

Testing site security issues

Promoting and Monetizing the Site

Promoting and Monetizing the Site

Technical requirements

Enabling visibility for search engines

Optimizing pings to third-party services

Creating an XML sitemap

Optimizing content for search engines

Adding social sharing buttons to posts

Building an audience with newsletters

Building a landing page with a page builder

Integrating Google Analytics

Monetizing the site with custom ad spots

Integrating Google AdSense for displaying ads

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Appendix

Configuring and setting up WordPress

Understanding the WordPress database

Working with the WordPress database

Understanding the WordPress directory structure

Additional resources

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Configuring and setting up WordPress

In this section, we are going to see how to install WordPress. We will be using the WAMP tool for the PHP, MySQL, and Apache setup. You can use any other tool or do a manual installation of this software before installing WordPress. Use the following steps to install WordPress on your server:

We are using WordPress 5.3.2 as the latest version available at the time of writing this book. Download version 5.3.2 from the official website at http://wordpress.org/download.
Create a folder inside the root folder of your server. Since we are using WAMP, the root folder on our local server will be wamp64/www. In this case, we will call the folder wpcookbook.
Extract the files of WordPress 5.3.2 into the wpcookbook folder.

Use the browser and access the URL of your site. In this case, we are installing WordPress on our local computer and hence the...