Νοέμβριος 2007 ΝΙΚΟΛΑΟΣ ΚΑΝΤΖΕΛΗΣ Use Worpress to create your own blog WORDPRESS 2.0

HANDS-ON WORKSHOP MAIN POINTS INTRODUCTION TO BLOGGING INTRODUCTION TO WORDPRESS(HOSTED VERSION) DIFFERENT OPTIONS OF INSTALLING WP CREATING A WORDPRESS ACCOUNT LOGGING IN TO A BLOG DASHBOARD-THE CONTROL PANEL OF THE BLOG

MANAGING THE ACCOUNT CREATING CATEGORIES CREATING POSTS MANAGING POSTS

CREATING PAGES MANAGING PAGES WORKING WITH ACCOUNTS CUSTOMIZING THEMES OPTIONS WIDGETS

POSTING FROM WORD CONCLUSION BOOKS & ONLINE RESOURCES Q & A

BLOGGING "Blog" is an abbreviated version of "web-log” Anyone can setup without any advanced computer know- how frequently updatable personal website featuring diary-type commentary links to articles or other Web sites. Blogs range from the personal to the political

WHAT IS WORDPRESS Started from people like Michael Adams,Ryan Boren,Mark Riley,Matt Thomas Started in 2003 The largest self-hosted blogging tool in the world Hundreds of thousands of sites Seen by tens of millions of people every day

Was created by and for the community Is an Open Source project Hundreds of people all over the world working on it Large user community and completely customizable (themes and plugins )

Understanding WordPress It is not the typical computer program that runs on your computer It is not a plugin for your web browser It is a system built on PHP and MySQL which run on Unix Can set up your blog without knowledge of PHP or MySQL

Anatomy of a Wordpress Blog Header Appears at the top of the page Contains the name of the blog and a brief description

Links to Static Pages One can include static pages to his blog They can be used to provide information about the blog or any other content

Posts They are individual entries in the blog It contains a post title, post date and time and the post author Posts can be as long or as short as you like Include images, text and links

Footer A footer appears at the bottom of the page Normally includes copyright information Includes details about the blog’s theme

Sidebar Appears on every page Includes navigation links and other features Search form Calendar Recent Posts Category Archive Feeds

On Wordpress.com (free-hosted) On Wordpress.com (free-hosted) On your personal web server On your personal web server On a paid web server service On a paid web server service Where are Wordpress sites hosted?

Things to consider regarding web hosting service Wordpress.com does not give you direct database access. If you pay for a web server, you probably have FTP access and database access. Wordpress.com may limit some of the add-ons you may wish to include (i.e. widgets). Some Link options are not allowed.

Installing WordPress – Requirements(only if you need to host on a different web server) web server (virtually any!) PHP version 4.2 or greater MySQL version 4.0 or greater

Choosing Blog software 1.What are the required technical skills needed to install and edit the blog? 2.Can posts be easily created and modified? 3.Can pictures and multimedia be easily uploaded? 4.Can posts and comments be displayed, turned on/off? 5.Can posts be moderated before published 6.Can the blog generate RSS feeds? 7.Can the appearance and layout be easily changed? 8.Is there technical support?

Choosing Blog software-cont “We need to get up and running quickly, without technical skills…” WordPress (hosted) “We want to tailor the blog, and someone technical can help set it up, but non-tech-savvy folks will be posting.” WordPress (installed) “Our organization is pretty technical all around, and we want the most flexibility in a blogging tool.” WordPress (installed)

Customizing WordPress – Themes Hosted: plug and play Installed: acquire, plug, tweak, and play Requires understanding of CSS and PHP An example of the difference between the Hosted and the Installed version

BLOGGING SOFTWARE PLATFORMS

CREATING A WORDPRESS ACCOUNT CLICK HERE Or click here if you have an account and you want to log in With one account you can have more than one blog

SIGN-UP PROCESS Username cannot be changed later This address can’t be used in another wordpress blog

The username forms part of the wordpress blog URL-cannot be changed later The title is also dependent on the username but can be changed later

Site Administration-Login Type your details

In case you want to log in from the wordpress.com.

Dashboard The Dashboard refers to your control panel, you can access everything for your blog from the dashboard.

CHANGING THE THEME Inside your “Dashboard” click on the “Presentation” link in the top navigation panel. WordPress has 57 different pre-made themes you can choose from, to add a theme to your blog simply find the one you like and click on it.

Select the theme you like most

Viewing & Customizing your Blog To view your blog in it’s new theme, scroll back up to the top of the page and click on the “View Site” link. Most of the themes allow you to customize some aspect of them, such as color and the location of the navigation. So play around until you get something you like!

Customize the theme

Changing the profile Change personal information This picture is called Avatar

Managing your Blog The dashboard is where you access all the different management functions of your blog. Yours will probably look a bit bare at the moment, but it will be full info in no time!

Blog Stats To access the Blog Status click on “Dashboard” then “Blog Stats”

Blog Surfer

My Comments

Tag Surfer Here you can view posts from other bloggers with similar tags like yours

Start Blogging Adding Text & Images & Doc’s The most important thing in any blog is the “Post” While writing a post you may want to refer to an image or document. WordPress allows you to upload images files (.jpg/.jpeg/.png/.gif) PDF and Word documents and PowerPoint Presentations into your blog posts.

How Posting works To add a post you simply type in the title, the content and then click on ‘publish’. Posts are automatically added chronologically, with the most recent appearing at the top of your blog first. If you want to attach a file (e.g. a PowerPoint, word document, picture etc) then you can do so from the ‘upload panel”.

Write a Post Title of the Post Main body of the post- Visual editor-option to see the html code

Post Options Attach a category to the post. You can have a post attached to more than one category Attach a tag Control Buttons

Adding Images & Doc’s As we saw earlier, under the “Write” tab you will see two area’s, the first box is where you write your blog post, the second box is to upload files. Click on the “Browse” button and locate the file you would like to add to your post. Provide a title/description and click “Upload”

Depending on what you upload the next menu box will vary, the options for an image are related to size and if you would like the image to link to a file or another page. To finish click on the “Send to editor” button and the file will be added to your blog post.

Write Page Page Title Page Body Page Structure

Alternative Page Title

Manage Posts Filtering Options Post Optio ns

Manage Pages Filtering Options

Manage Uploads

Manage Categories

Manage Import

Manage Export

Manage Comments Search for Comments

Comments Moderation You have the Option to have comments not directly published but awaiting for your approval

Spam Posts

Manage Blogroll

Add Link

Import Links

Create – Edit Categories

Many themes to choose from

Widgets Configure a widget by clicking the configure button

Presentation Extras

Theme Options

Edit CSS In case you upgrade to CSS editing, you can write you own CSS code and apply the code to the HTML elements

Adding users In the dashboard click on “Users” WordPress allows you to add users and give them a specific role in the blog. First your users need to sign up for a WordPress account at wordpress.com so back to step 1, but this time the users just need to check off that they want an account, so no need to set up another blog. wordpress.com

List of various Users

Explanation of Roles

Under the “Users” tab in the Dashboard enter the users address and then select the role you would like to give them in the blog, you can choose from Administrator, Editor, Author or Contributor To finish click the “Add User” Button

Invite users to join

Options General

Options Writing

Options Reading

Options Discussion

Options Privacy

Options Delete Blog Please note that if you delete your account, you cannot get it back!!

Options OpenID

Options Domains

Upgrades

Gifts

Domains

Posting from MS Word 2007 With MS word 2007 you have the option to post to your blog using as editor the MS Word environment This gives you many options when it comes to formatting your text and applying stunning effects to text and images

Create a new post from MS Word Create a new post by clicking here

Create the account Wordpress account through MS Word

Publish the post Then after you finish with the post click the publish button

Published post

Conclusion Wordpress is great for starting your own blog or website. Wordpress is free software. Wordpress.com hosts these websites free of charge, but does have limitations.

WordPress Resources June 2006 October 2006January 2006August 2007 wordpress.org

On-Line Resources

THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!