Tag Archives: WordPress

Week 8 – Nervous but Trying

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This week we learned about WordPress themes and their importance. Themes are made up of a number of files. The two main files are: a PHP file (as a template) and a CSS file (for styling). While I could find myself easily falling into a rabbit hole of themes, I know that the perfect theme isn’t necessarily just for aesthetic purposes. The ‘perfect’ theme is the one that is the most user-friendly. Throughout the week I’ve e=been looking at examples of theme code. I’ll most likely be customizing a theme for my mom’s website but it has been helpful to see how themes are structured in coding. When we discussed themes and plug-ins during class, I didn’t quite understand the difference. The Theme Handbook helped me understand the distinction. Themes control visuals while plug-ins are for functionality.

In general, I’m pretty nervous about creating this website for my mom. I knew this project was coming up, but now that we’re actually setting it up, I’m a bit overwhelmed. I’ve been reading up on the different aspects of a site in chunks. There are so many different things to think about! Navigation menus, themes, plug-ins, taxonomony. It’s a lot to consider. I thought that reading and researching would help build my confidence. So far, it’s just made me more unsure about whether I am capable of creating a website I am proud of. I’m going to give it my best effort and see where it goes. I am also going to come up with a schedule of when I’ll work on the site to lessen my anxiety. I know for a fact this is not the kind of project that can be done overnight, so I’m going to plan accordingly.

The Ultimate Rebrand (Final Pitch)

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What/why: For my final project, I’d like to create my own personal portfolio to capture all that I’ve worked on thus far in my career. I feel that it would make me more marketable because it’d be much more effective if I put my skills to use and have something presentable for what I learned in this class, rather than just slapping it onto my resume.

I currently have an e-portfolio on WordPress. I’ve also created a niche site on WordPress about the Harlem Renaissance.  The challenge of this project will be to find creative ways to spice up the way I present myself. I could put the basic things I already have on this one, but I want to challenge myself to add some bells and whistles that showcase my new skills.

Goals:

My goal is to incorporate functionality into my portfolio. I want to make sure it is interactive, especially through JavaScript. Another goal not directly related to the design of the site is to explore the options for plugins and gain a deeper understanding of the site.

Modifications:

I will be doing mostly front-end modifications.

  • Include a travel page with an interactive map (I found a plugin that will allow me to include JavaScript when I hover/click on a place.
  • On the travel page, I will also create a photo gallery, similar to the one we made in class.
  • I will create a contact/inquiries form.
  • I will add my social media feeds.
  • I will incorporate the Click to Tweet plugin to allow users to share my content.
  • I will incorporate a newsletter plugin to keep my readers updated.

 

Audience: The audience would mostly be recruiters and colleagues, specifically in journalism. I want to show them that I am a versatile journalist with a diverse skillset.

 

URL will be dajaehenry.com.

The Internet is like onions. Onions have layers.

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Learning PHP felt a lot like JavaScript. At points, I got the two programming languages mixed up because of the use of the $ to define variables in PHP and its use in jQuery. I think I’m definitely getting a better feel for it because when I’d slip up on jQuery/JavaScript, I’d be stuck for hours. When I messed up on PHP, most times I knew exactly what I was looking for to fix my mistakes. It also helped that the PHP website tells you which line the error is on.

The PHP lesson also made me notice a concept that I had previously glazed over, thinking I understood. While we used jQuery primarily for interactive purposes and to give us actions with visible results for everything, the PHP lessons in the beginning primarily focused on using data and selecting things out of arrays. On this lesson, the author says we will focus on it as a programming language and not web development. Previously, I didn’t realize there was a difference. I recalled the Codecademy lesson on functions in JavaScript , in which we programmed these functions, but they did not visibly add anything to the structure of a website.

My initial thought after learning more about WordPress was that I need to take it off my resume. What I know about managing WordPress is comparable to taking a French class and trying to speak Haitian Creole. I knew WordPress as the site that hosted my e-portfolio, blogs I once had, and a niche site that I created about the Harlem Renaissance for a project once. I know how to upload content into WordPress using the themes and templates, but I didn’t know anything about hosting a website, which is what I thought (think?) journalists are referring to, after having countless lectures about creating our e-portfolios on WordPress because it’s the industry standard. Now, I know that there are even more levels.

Week 7: PHP & WordPress

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This week, it was fun to learn PHP. I was not fully understanding everything that we went over in class last week when we started going over PHP and WordPress.org, but the exercises this week allowed me to really understand these concepts. It was cool to see how the all these languages work together and the similarities within them.

 

Diving Deeper

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I have a love/hate relationship with Codecademy, and this week I really missed it. PHP is very similar to JavaScript (which isn’t my strong suit), so it would’ve been helpful to have Codecademy to provide me with extra examples. The PHP website doesn’t give you hints when you make a mistake on your code like Codecademy, so I was never sure what to fix in my initial code. I didn’t start struggling in the PHP lessons until I had to make a function that returned every number squared. It was helpful to see the screenshots and read the explanations of each task, but at times I struggled with using critical thinking skills to figure out which skill set to carry out.

After reviewing the WordPress site in class, I was shocked at how many websites are built with it. When looking at their themes, I noticed the templates looked familiar to websites I’ve used before. WordPress reminds me of Weebly because they provide templates you can follow to create the website for your needs. It differs because you get more creative freedom by being able to code behind the scenes. Seeing all the different themes got me excited to create my website and I’m curious as to how it will turn out.

Its crazy to think in the last 7 weeks I’ve learned HTML, CSS, JavaScript, jQuery, and now PHP. It’s interesting to see how the different coding languages interact with each other to create just basic visuals and output. This week I played my favorite game “Snake” on this random website. If I wasn’t in this class, I wouldn’t have realized the game was created in JavaScript. The creator even uploaded a link to his code that led me to his GitHub account. I was amazed that I actually understood some of his coding.

In case you feel like playing here’s the link 😉

http://patorjk.com/games/snake/

Long weekend of pizza and coding

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This past week/weekend has taught me a lot about the world of coding — hours can fly by without you realizing it. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re completing numerous tasks…you could have gotten no where. For a few hours on Saturday, as I coded with a few classmates, that’s how I felt. That I had done so much work customizing my WordPress site, but was not getting the results I was hoping for. For example, I finally had success creating a custom post type (YAY!!), but after creating the meta boxes (following the guidelines of the Reading List example Greg showed us in class), the meta boxes weren’t working. The information was not being echoed correctly, or at all. That was infuriatingly frustrating. Today, it’s still not working. After putting that to the side, I worked on creating two other custom post types, had written all of the code and was ready to conquer these additional post types (TV Review & Restaurant Review). To no avail, I realized that WordPress doesn’t allow for multiple custom post types. Even after hours of Googling the answer, I haven’t been able to figure it out. Any help is appreciated!

Update on my final project site:

  • I’ve created three custom post types with meta boxes as plugins. They don’t work properly, but i’ve created them.
  • I’ve updated the CSS of the child theme as much as I could to my satisfaction for the layout/display of the site. I incorporated Google fonts, HEX colors, and updated the main menu navigation.

What’s left to do:

  • Continue working on getting the custom post types and meta boxes to work!
  • Adding two plugins: Instagram feed and Contact form
  • Inserting content

The next few days should be interesting. I am really hoping to be able to get the customizations I set out to do done and to successfully complete the project. Below are a few questions I have:

  • How do we add multiple custom post types?!
  • how do we get our meta boxes to echo the information we put in them?

Big shout out to Allie, Jaclyn, and Lucy for all their help this weekend!

Finding My Way: Final Project Reflections and Overall Class Thoughts

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Finishing my final project site was the best feeling. When I loaded the final versions of my Sublime files via FileZilla and clicked over to my live site and they actually (mostly) worked, I was shocked and relieved. I was — and am still — a little bit in awe of myself.

I am pleased with what I was able to create for my final project site. As I mentioned in my last post, my modifications included creating a custom post type plugin, rendering a custom metabox, and creating four fields within the metabox that I was eventually able to get to save. I also did a fair amount of CSS styling, including changing the fonts and colors on my site title, subtitle, widget headings, post headings, and body content. I also changed the color of my site’s main navigation bar and put it in a fixed position at the top of the page so that it stays there when you scroll down the page. Lastly, I changed the static and hover colors of the various buttons on my site and added Strava and social media button plugins. Although I wasn’t able to create the lightbox slideshow and featured post carousel that I had initially pitched, I am proud of what I was able to accomplish. If you had asked me 10 weeks ago what a custom post type was and what the steps were to build a plugin, I would have responded with a blank stare. I now know how to create one, or at least what to search for on Google in order to do so!

I’m planning to continue working on my site after the semester is over. I’m hoping to acquire some Adobe Illustrator skills in the coming months so that I can create a custom logo to feature in my site header. In the meantime, I’ll probably make my site title font a little smaller and also reduce the size of the header as a whole. I might also go with a more minimalist color scheme for my site by making my navigation bar the same color as my background.

Looking back on this class as a whole, it has truly been a lesson in problem-solving and troubleshooting. I was already a big user of Google before enrolling in this class, but I can honestly say that I have never Googled so many things in such a short period of time. As the semester went on and my knowledge and understanding of the different coding concepts and programming languages increased, I found myself having an easier time finding the answers to questions simply because I knew what to Google. Not knowing what to search for or where to look as I struggled to build my jQuery slideshow back in June as well as during the early stages of my final project work was frustrating. I quickly learned however, that there are so many resources and forums online that have people asking the same or similar questions. At times, it was reassuring to know that I wasn’t the only one struggling with trying to figure out how to do something.

Thinking back to the very first Codecademy lessons on HTML and CSS, I can see just how much I’ve learned in a short period of time. I went from only knowing how to make a font bold in HTML to creating divs, styling classes in CSS, and using WordPress hooks to create different functionality within my site. The WordPress platform as a whole is something that intrigues me a lot, and I plan to continue exploring all that it has to offer. I learned that there is a WordPress meet-up group in D.C., and I may attend one of their meetings in the future to see what I can learn from more experienced developers.

One suggestion for future iterations of this course would be to start focusing on WordPress earlier in the semester. While I was able to eventually figure out most things on my own, I think it would have been helpful to have a better idea of how WordPress works before I jumped into creating my final project site. I had to do a lot of reading and researching to figure out what hooks and actions were and how they worked within WordPress, and I think that teaching those things and other WordPress-specific concepts earlier in the semester might help future students.

Overall, while I was certainly frustrated at many points throughout the summer and often felt like I was reaching a dead end no matter how hard I searched for an answer, I am grateful for this experience and for being encouraged to dig for answers and find solutions on my own.

The Final Stretch

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This week I found myself feeling satisfied and relieved to be taking a break from coding my final project. I went into the last class knowing that I wanted to complete a few tweaks to my WordPress site, wanted to collaborate with my classmates on figuring out the final pieces of code, and coming to terms that I don’t fully understand why my code doesn’t always work. I found myself Googling more than I had anticipated that I would be, and I relied heavily on a number of PHP and CSS code testers to be test my code. At times, I was confused as to if I was making updates to my local or live site…I have a case of “too many tabs open at one time” syndrome. In a way, it was good. It forced me restart my thinking from scratch and gave me a minute to walk away from the code.

Admittedly, I have grown frustrated with the Final Project. I had a feeling I would. I spent SOOOOO many hours trying to get all of the custom post types to work, then getting the meta boxes to work. The frustration quickly turned to anger. I’d be ecstatic if someone could look at my code and find how to improve it so it could echo the information correctly (or at all) the actual post.

Another major shout out to everyone in class the other day. Thanks for helping answer all of my questions!

I’m happy to be able to take a step back from the code. My plan is to quickly jump back into my WordPress site and continuously develop the site, content, and my coding skills. I hope to be able to go back to Code Academy and re-work on the lessons at a slower pace to allow me to soak in the information.

Onward and upward. I hope everyone enjoys the site.

Github: https://github.com/amaliaks/Final_Project_Amalia

Site: http://threecheersfourfood.com/

Baby steps towards the Final Project

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Readings:

I’ve had some experience working with software developers and implementation specialists who have explained the benefits of an API. When I worked at Oracle as a Human Capital Management Account Representative, our selling point was Oracle’s open-API standard, or the fact that our applications could talk to virtually anything. In completing the readings from Free Code Camp and WordPress, I was able to get a better understanding of how APIs are used outside of the enterprise software sphere and are used every day by people like you and me. In the past, I’ve heard about REST APIs, but I don’t understand their importance? How would using a REST API on our WordPress site be beneficial to our page? Or, how would this practically translate to our final project?

Update on Final Project:

I’ve finally started working on my final project. It’s been intimidating to say the least. I’ve done all of my work on my local server and haven’t attempted to move anything to the Filezilla application. Should I be actively syncing these two together?

I’ve separately created a CSS file of tweaks that I want to make, but how do I incorporate this into the existing code? Should I create a separate CSS file within my child-theme and have it run last?

My biggest concern is updating the plugins that I wanted to incorporate. How do we do this? Is there a ‘how-to’ document that you’ve found particularly useful online that we should try to follow?

Additional overarching questions:

  • If we are adding HTML, CSS, PHP, etc. to our WordPress site, do we create separate files for these? Where should we be updating the code?

As the final project approaches, I’m realizing how much more time I need to dedicate to the project. I’m starting to think that my final pitch post may have been over ambitious…only time will tell.

Diving into WordPress Documentation and Using PHP

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This week’s readings about the various features of WordPress helped me think in more detail about how I want my final project site to look and what features and customizations I want to include. I spent a lot of time last week browsing through the many themes on WordPress.org, and am still deciding between two very similar themes — Retina and Wisteria. The “What is a Theme?” article was helpful in terms of thinking about the various parts that make up a theme and why plugins are important to use when adding functionality to a site.

The reading about plugins was interesting because I’m still going back and forth about whether or not I should create a new plugin to link my Strava profile to my site, or instead customize one of the existing Strava plugins available on WordPress. I need to do more research and take a closer look at the code on some of the existing plugins to see what exactly I would like to customize. I also will likely have to contact the creators of the original plugin and obtain their permission to customize their plugin.

After reading the documentation about custom fields, I decided that this was something I’d like to incorporate into my final project. I’m not sure, however, whether this would count as an actual customization, since it seems pretty straightforward and easy to do using the <?php the_meta(); ?> tag. Is this really all there is to it? If so, does this count as a customization?

After completing the readings, I had a better understanding of how WordPress uses multiple PHP files and templates to create themes and custom websites. Speaking of PHP, one of the other assignments for this week was to add PHP to our existing HTML homepage that we started building earlier in the semester. I created a contact form — modeled after the W3 Schools form — featuring four fields and labels (name, email, your website, and comment). After a lot of Googling and trial and error, I was able to figure out how to use the <textarea> function in HTML to make my comment box larger and able to accommodate multiple lines of text. For anyone interested in learning how to do this, this Stack Overflow thread might be useful. I’ll likely build my own PHP form as one of my customizations on my final project site.

I almost forgot to mention that I officially purchased my domain and hosting on GoDaddy! My site will be called The Running (G)lover (a not-so-clever play on both my last name and the topic of my site), and my domain is www.therunningglover.com. I ended up purchasing the economy hosting plan for three months, but have high hopes that my finished site will look amazing and that I’ll be motivated to keep it going after the semester ends.

I’m looking forward to working on my final project site this coming week!