Tag Archives: MAMP

Deja Vu

So for this past week, amidst everything coming to the end of the semester, I have been completing the setup and installation on my new laptop. At first, things were going swimmingly — I was downloading everything I needed on my computer to pickup where we had left off for the WordPress final project site.

I did this by scouring the class syllabus and schedule to make sure that I had everything in order. However, some of this setup we had completed in class (which was wonderful) and I had minimal to no memory of what specific files to download or link or create databases for. I ended up Googling solutions and instructions for step-by-step setup and was feeling pretty abysmal until I read that MAMP is inclusive of phpMyAdmin and Apache (duh). So I spent a great deal of time exhausting a search of how to download these things that were already taken care of, it was relieving but frustrating.

When setting up my WordPress development environment, I was posed with the same problem I encountered when Laura was substituting — my child theme was not appearing. I redid the entire process about four times. I did read that there is a “Going Live” set of instructions via Smashing Magazine and I think that this will serve as a solution to my confusion. At this point I needed a break from continual failure and will try this tomorrow and move forward by starting on some CSS I plan to implement.

I have been rewatching the video from Laura regarding child themes and the reading list plugin, and by doing so I am starting to find a little bit of clarity (yay) as this projects comes to an end. For some reason there was a disconnect in my understanding as to how GitHub and WordPress related to one another for the project, but now I realize that it is just being used to document my progress as I complete it. Anyways, heres to finishing strong and sorry for the multiple emails, Professor Greg.

Setting up for success

Much of my weekend was spent getting the pieces together to be sure my site will come together well. I’ve been going back through old stories, pulling together photos and videos, and making sure the relevant metadata comes with the content (things like dates and captions).

I’ve been rediscovering WordPress too — the plethora of themes, plugins and possibilities are exciting. It’s getting me geared up to do my own site, yes, but think about how these tools could be useful in the professional world too. Many nonprofits I’ve worked at need help with this sort of thing!

This is all to say I don’t feel overwhelmed with all the tools and technologies we’re trying to pull together to actually make this thing — FileZilla, WordPress, GitHub, Sublime Text, MAMP…the list goes on! But of course, my biggest anxiety comes from actually building these plugins. I’m constantly worried that whatever I start to build and enter granular commits for will end up not working in the end.

I feel fortunate I have some friends who have web development experience I can bounce ideas off of and take advice from. And that my classmates seem to be going through the same anxieties!