October 2013 Workshop: Customizing themes.

Customizing themes workshop

Goal of the workshop: Even if you have never looked at a WordPress theme before, at the end of the day you will understand how to modify a theme and will have made changes, that you want, to a theme you are using on your own website.

Location: Robertson Hall marked on Google: http://goo.gl/maps/1UkxO

Parking: Parking on campus requires payment, but all of the lots, including the garage just to the north of Roberson Hall, cap at $3 for the day on the weekend. http://www5.carleton.ca/parking/visitors/parking-rates/

About the Workshop: You will need a laptop (this is a hands on session). You will need a local web server installed, with WordPress so you can easily work on websites. We'll help out on Sat. starting at 8:30 if you get stuck with the installs. If you are ambitious, you could copy a WordPress site you have to the local server to work on it.

You could also work on a site you have hosted somewhere, but working live on a site often disrupts it, and it's better and faster to work on a local server. (and while we have arranged for WiFi, we can't guarantee it will work all day)

Local Web Servers: A couple of links to videos have been added in the comments below.

For Windows, if you are new to this, the easiest webserver to install is Bitnami http://bitnami.com/stack/wordpress . (http://codex.wordpress.org/User:Beltranrubo/BitNami.) A Bitnami installation tutorial http://codex.wordpress.org/User:Beltranrubo/BitNami . You could also install WAMP, but it tends to have more install troubles. WAMP: http://www.wampserver.com/en/download.php . There is a video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rw5Wgglsass that is helpfull.

For Mac's the best choice is generally MAMP: http://www.mamp.info/en/index.html , see the video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWaRKHCdfzc .

WordPress: Unless you installed Bitnami, you will also need to install WordPress: http://wordpress.org/download/ .

Programming Editor: These editors make things a lot easier. You don't have to have one, you can use Notepad (Windows) or Text Edit (Mac), but you might consider installing one of these: NotePad++ (http://notepad-plus-plus.org/download/v5.9.6.2.html) - free (Windows), Textmate (http://macromates.com/) - free (Mac), or Sublime Text (http://www.sublimetext.com/2) - paid, but has an unlimited trial version (for both Windows and Mac), or Text Mate (http://macromates.com/) or Coda (http://panic.com/coda/) - both are paid (Mac).

Lunch: We plan on ordering in pizza & some beverages. If you would prefer to opt out and bring your own lunch you are welcome to do that too. We'll be asking for a $7 contribution to cover pizza and drinks.

This a rough plan right now...

Workshop Agenda:

Pre-Workshop:

8:30 - Set-up, get help with local server and WordPress installs

Workshop:

9:00 - Opening remarks, and complete setup of local servers on laptops - Rick

9:30 - Tactics for picking themes - Jasmine

9:50 - What is a child theme and creating child themes - Rick

10:00 - Workshop - Create your own child theme

10:20 - Intro to HTML & CSS with workshop - Mike

11:10 - Intro to the WordPress Loop - Part 1 - Rick

11:20 - Workshop - Intro to the WordPress Loop - 1

11:50 - Lunch

12:30 - Intro to the WordPress Loop - Part 2 - Rick

12:40 - Workshop - Intro to the WordPress Loop - 2

1:10 - Intro to the WordPress Loop - Part 3? - Rick

1:15 - Open workshop - work on the last workshop or your own theme

2:30 or so - Wrap up

Advanced Sessions

We have a room where more advanced users can "recess". This will be an open session. A couple of members have volunteered to do 10-15 min lighting talks with discussion periods on advanced topics. If you want to present/lead a talk, just come on Sat prepared to talk, and grab a time slot. The slots will be set up to align with the main session presentations.