Wordpress

Warm-Up

Each of you are going to look at a professional website from an academic (I’ve mixed together Northeastern people and others):

  1. http://jguiliano.com/
  2. https://mollynebiolo.com/
  3. http://6floors.org/
  4. https://ryancordell.org/
  5. http://erinbush.org/
  6. https://www.moyabailey.com/
  7. http://roopikarisam.com/
  8. http://brooke-welles.squarespace.com/
  9. https://zoeleblanc.com/
  10. http://www.lauraknelson.com/

Go through the website and think about what kind of information it includes, how it is organized, what message it is sending about the person.

With the person next to you, compare notes:

  • What are the similarities and differences in terms of content?
  • What are similarities and differences in terms of design and layout?
  • What one is more appealing or informative to you as a viewer - let’s say you’re thinking about taking a class with one of them or want to do some kind of project with them - what is helpful and what isn’t? It’s okay to be honest. :)

Make a Sandbox

Today we are going to install a Wordpress site that will be hosted with your account at Reclaim hosting. First, we’re going to create a new sub-directory in our Reclaim Hosting database that is going to serve as your “sandbox” for the semester. This is what you’re going to use to play around with different tools, installations, etc.

To create your sandbox:

  • Log in to Reclaim Hosting with the account you created
  • Go to File Manager and make sure you are in the public_html folder
  • Add a new folder within your public_html folder called f19-dig-hist (make sure it says public_html under “New folder will be created in:”)
  • Navigate to the folder. It should be empty!

Install a Wordpress Site

Rather than create your own professional website at the root directory for whatever domain name you chose, we’re going to make a Wordpress website within your “sandbox” sub-directory.

You are gong to follow the following instructions to install a Wordpress site using Reclaim Hosting. But you are going to install it within a specific sub-folder (sub-directory) of your f19-dig-hist sandbox folder. The name of this sub-directory is going to be website. So when you’re asked for Directory (Optional), type in: f19-dig-hist/website

Note: choose a username and password that you can remember and copy/paste it somewhere for your reference. This is what you’re going to use to log in to this Wordpress site moving forward.

Instructions: https://community.reclaimhosting.com/t/installing-wordpress/265.

Now you should have a website installed under http://yourdomainname/f19-dig-hist/website. If you go back to Reclaim Hosting’s File Manager and go back to f19-dig-hist folder, you should now see a new folder called website. If you look inside here, you will see a bunch of new folders and files that were automatically generated to “build” your Wordpress site.

To actually start modifying your website, you need to log in to the Wordpress dashboard (separate from Reclaim Hosting). The login page will be: http://yourdomainname/f19-dig-hist/website/wp-admin , and you will use the username and password you specified when you installed Wordpress.

STOP: Once you’ve reached this point we will go over Wordpress features in person.

Play Around

Try to figure out how to do the following:

  • Make a new page titled Week 2 and write a few sentences about yourself.
  • Copy and paste the content from your Week 2 page into a new Blog Post with an identical title.
  • Choose a different Wordpress theme than the default one

Next Week

Install Wordpress for your main domain (not a sub-directory) and make an About page that introduces yourself in a few paragraphs. You will use this for your professional website moving forward.