Setting up Wordpress

Wordpress is a popular content managing system (CMS) that allows the user to easily add media content and edit pages or blog posts without any coding knowledge. As a web designer/developer it is extremely helpful to use some sort of CMS, since when you are finished coding the website, your client can maintain the site themselves. I've had clients ask me every year or so to "take out this picture" or "add in this picture" or "change this line here to..." and so on for 6+ years. If I had started using a CMS earlier, I could have avoided a lot of hassle!

Wordpress is based in PHP - a general scripting language that is server-side. Since we will be using a server-side language, both Google Hosting and Brackets "live preview" function will not work to display our sites. We can however use MAMP (Macintosh Apache MySQL PHP), a program that acts as a testing server directly on your own computer. This was originally developed for Macs but now also works across multiple operating systems. MAMP allows you to run and view PHP code directly in your browser.


 Make a copy of Wordpress, located in the shared class folder (most likely on the desktop). Drag this into your "Documents" folder.

Installing MAMP:

1. Take the "MAMP installer" from the shared class folder and place it on the desktop.
2. Double-click the MAMP icon on your desktop. A window should pop-up with a MAMP folder, drag this into your Applications folder.
3. Open the MAMP app - search in spotlight or find inside of the MAMP folder (Applications --> MAMP folder --> MAMP.

At this point you may be asked for an administrative password - call me over.

Setting up MAMP:

1. Click on "Preferences"
2. Select "Web Server"
3. Click on the gray folder and select your "Wordpress" folder & click ok
4. Click on "Start Servers"
5. MAMP will open in your browser.

 

Setting up a database:

1. Go to Tools and choose "phpMyAdmin"
2. Select the "Databases" tab
3. Under create database, write "wordpress" and click create