Your hands-on video guide to WordPress.org development: Take total control over WordPress, customizing any site to your unique requirements!

These easy video tutorials show how to unleash the full power of WordPress.org’s open source code and customize WordPress to your precise requirements. WordPress for Developers LiveLessons walks you through mastering all the development skills you need to make visual, structural, and functional changes that are impossible with packaged solutions. Top WordPress expert John LeMasney walks you through setting up your WordPress development environment, including a complete LAMP stack (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP); working with WordPress databases and configuration files; safeguarding WordPress from hackers and spammers; controlling the WordPress engine through functions, hooks, classes, and methods; defining the structure, appearance, and behavior of new themes; using plugins to add powerful new functionality without changing the WordPress engine; and finding the resources and mastering the terminology you need to become an advanced WordPress developer. In just seven hours, you’ll learn how to bend WordPress to your will and build sites like nobody else’s!

About the Instructor

John LeMasney is a designer, artist, writer, poet, technologist, consultant, open web advocate, and open source evangelist who helps people use technology to improve their lives, work, and world. For more than 20 years, he has consulted on technology, design, communication, and branding for academia, the enterprise, libraries, and consumers. He teaches at Rider University's Master of Arts in Organizational Leadership program, as well as at Princeton Public Library, Princeton Adult School, Library Link NJ, and other venues. He was previously Manager of Educational Technology Training and Outreach at Princeton University. He created the WordPress for Beginners LiveLessons and WordPress for Advanced Users video tutorials.

Skill Level

• Intermediate
• Advanced

What You Will Learn

• How to master the terminology and key concepts of WordPress development
• How to install, test, and secure WordPress in a self-hosted environment
• How to perform key WordPress file and database server administration tasks
• How to manipulate WordPress functions, hooks, classes, and methods
• How to develop WordPress themes, structures, plugins, and functions
• How to use cutting-edge WordPress information resources

Who Should Take This Course

• Anyone who wants to customize WordPress in ways that out-of-the-box or packaged solutions won’t allow
• Any web, IT, or content management professional who wants to take full advantage of the WordPress platform

Course Requirements

• Basic web development skills using HTML, CSS, and PHP and/or JavaScript scripting
• Experience with hosted WordPress.com or a local WordPress.org installation
• Familiarity with WordPress concepts such as themes and plug-ins

Lesson 1: Setting Up Your WordPress Environment
Install and optimize your WordPress.org self-hosted environment, including a complete LAMP stack: Linux operating system, Apache server, MySQL relational database, and PHP scripting language. Plan for a development environment that protects your production system from downtime caused by testing or configuration errors.

Lesson 2: Installing and Testing WordPress for Development
Install WordPress for development, learn how WordPress uses each element of the stack, check for functional issues after an install, and review key challenges in protecting WordPress from hackers and spammers. Get your first look at WordPress’ database structure and create database backups, then explore WordPress configuration files and their capabilities.

Lesson 3: Information, Articles, and the Codex
Explore the resources, sites, and publications you need to do WordPress development well, especially the WordPress Codex and WordPress developer documents.

Lesson 4: WordPress’s Functions, Hooks, Classes and Methods
Explore the building blocks that enable rich development in WordPress: the functions, hooks, and PHP classes and methods that control how the WordPress engine behaves and displays your content.

Lesson 5: WordPress Theme Structure and Development
Start developing WordPress themes! Understand the structure of themes, and adapt a well-documented theme to create your own; review the theme stylesheet, and use it to define look and structure with CSS; examine and call theme functions; use PHP and CSS template files; discover how themes use JavaScript to define WordPress behavior; and discover resources and references for professional theme development.

Lesson 6: WordPress Plugins and Functions
Use plugins to extend WordPress functionality without affecting its core code, deeply modifying and customizing your site while protecting the WordPress engine. Understand the WordPress plugin API and the files that WordPress expects in any plugin; use headers to share licensing and other information; program your plugin, using hooks, template tags, database entries, and options; and discover resources for advanced plugin development.

Lesson 7: The Language of WordPress
Review the basic terminology you’ll encounter as a WordPress developer, so you can speak, write, and think with other professional WordPress developers.

LiveLessons Video Training series publishes hundreds of hands-on, expert-led video tutorials covering a wide selection of technology topics designed to teach you the skills you need to succeed. This professional and personal technology video series features world-leading author instructors published by your trusted technology brands: Addison-Wesley, Cisco Press, IBM Press, Pearson IT Certification, Prentice Hall, Sams, and Que. Topics include IT Certification, Programming, Web Development, Mobile Development, Home and Office Technologies, Business and Management, and more. View all LiveLessons on InformIT at http://www.quepublishing.com/livelessons.