WordPress

Take WordPress beyond its comfort zone

As the most popular open source blogging tool, WordPress is being used to power increasingly advanced sites, pushing it beyond its original purpose. In this unique book, the authors share their experiences and advice for working effectively with clients, manage a project team, develop with WordPress for larger projects, and push WordPress beyond its limits so that clients have the customized site they need in order to succeed in a competitive marketplace.

• Explains that there is more than one approach to a WordPress challenge and shows you how to choose the one that is best for you, your client, and your team
• Walks you through hosting and developing environments, theme building, and contingency planning
• Addresses working with HTML, PHP, JavaScript, and CSS

WordPress: Pushing the Limits encourages you to benefit from the experiences of seasoned WordPress programmers so that your client's site can succeed.

Introduction 1

Part I: Professional WordPress Development 5

Chapter 1 WordPress As a Professional Web Development Tool 7

Chapter 2 Kicking Off a WordPress Project 27

Part II Content and Administration 47

Chapter 3 Content Organization and Relationships 49

Chapter 4 Customizing the WordPress Admin 91

Part III Practicalities of Developing and Hosting WordPress Sites 139

Chapter 5 Development and Hosting Environments 141

Chapter 6 Avoiding and Dealing with Disaster 165

Part IV Pushing the Limits: The Best Tools for Site Development 191

Chapter 7 Theme Building: Frameworks, Standalone Themes, or Child Themes? 193

Chapter 8 Conditional Display: Functions, Template Files, and Styling 241

Chapter 9 Custom Functionality in Theme Functions and Plugins 273

Chapter 10 Making Your Site Soar: HTML, JavaScript, and CSS 313

Chapter 11 Device Compatibility: Responsive and Mobile Development 351

Chapter 12 Releasing Your Code to the Public 399

Index 429

Rachel McCollin comes from a learning and development background and started using her business experience to run a web design agency in 2010. She soon realized that developing sites with WordPress would meet her clients' needs better than building static sites and now develops exclusively with WordPress.

Whether you’re a freelance WordPress developer who’d like to cut out the middle man, a staff developer thinking about striking out on your own, or a WordPress entrepreneur looking for tips on how to attract more clients and expand your business, this book is for you.

Author Rachel McCollin shares what she’s learned as a head of her own agency about pushing WordPress to the limit – and beyond – to stay competitive and grow a successful WordPress-driven business.

Writing from both the technology and business perspectives, McCollin explains that there’s often more than one solution to a WordPress challenge, and she shows you how to choose the best one for you, your client, and your team. With the help of many real-life examples, she shows you how to:

• Work effectively with clients
• Manage project teams
• Establish robust, secure development and hosting environments for you and your clients
• Work with custom themes, theme frameworks, and plugins to meet client needs
• Scale up and use WordPress for larger projects
• Give your clients the customized sites they want
• Use template files, functions, and styling to create sites with complex designs and layouts
• Make a WordPress site soar with HTML, PHP, JavaScript, and CSS

Don’t learn the hard way. Read WordPress: Pushing the Limits and get the inside track from somebody who’s been there, done that, and found success in her own WordPress-based agency

Visit www.wiley.com/go/ptl/wordpress to download code files