WordPress Tip: My WordPress Quick Start Guide — Now Available on the WordPress Codex

by Tom Johnson on Apr 29, 2008
categories: blogging • technical-writing • wordpress

I wrote a WordPress Quick Start Guide in wiki format and posted it on the WordPress Codex. Check it out here: http://codex.wordpress.org/WordPress_Quick_Start_Guide.

This guide gives you a quick introduction to the most important tasks and concepts in WordPress. It divides these tasks and concepts into five sections, outlined below:

Get Set Up

• 1.1 Advantages of Self-Hosted WordPress Blogs
• 1.2 Become Familiar with FTP
• 1.3 Install WordPress on Your Web Host
• 1.4 Explore Your New WordPress Blog
• 1.5 Configure General Settings
• 1.6 Import Your Content from Blogger or Elsewhere

2 Create Content

• 2.1 Write a Post
• 2.2 Create a Page
• 2.3 Make Categories for Your Posts
• 2.4 Add Tags to Your Posts
• 2.5 Edit a Page or Post

3 Style Your Site

• 3.1 Change Your Theme
• 3.2 Modify Your Sidebar
• 3.3 Customize Your Header Image or Background
• 3.4 Configure How Your Pages Appear
• 3.5 Make It Easy to Subscribe to Your RSS Feed

4 Add More Functionality

• 4.1 Install a Plugin
• 4.2 Activate Akismet to Stop Spam
• 4.3 Create a Regular Database Backup
• 4.4 Include a Contact Form
• 4.5 Install Other Needed Plugins

5 Understand the Code More

• 5.1 Understand A Little Bit About Template Tags (PHP)
• 5.2 Modify Your Theme's Appearance
• 5.3 Understand Your Theme's Files
• 5.4 Recognize the Loop
• 5.5 Learn How to Upgrade Your Blog Software
• 5.6 Learn How to Get Help

I wrote the guide because I've felt, for some time now, that the WordPress Codex is too massive to be useful for anything more than reference information. There needs to be a shorter, more concise way of getting up to speed with WordPress.

I think my basic organization and content is okay, but the wiki format is challenging. It looks quite long, it's not too printer friendly (although you can print it), and there aren't any images (which means it's not very visually attractive). Writing in wiki format is hard (easy to write, hard to make look professional).

If you have any suggestions for how I might improve the Quick Start Guide, let me know. Actually, if you want to get involved as a WordPress Codex author/editor, see Contributing to WordPress. After you register for an account and log in, and then change the skin to Monobook, you'll see an Edit button you can click to edit the wiki content. I'd love if it some of you out there actually edited this guide.