[lester]

can someone please suggest a good beginner’s book, please? i’ve been doing the lynda.com vids and have bought a couple books (WROX professional wordpress design and dev; chris coyier’s, DIGWP; and even beginning wordpress 3) and still can’t put it all together. i’m very frustrated! i’m hopeful someone can steer me in a helpful direction. thanks, L

[Steve]

@sprout– WordPress is vast. What do you want to focus on?
-managing the admin?
-styling your theme with CSS?
-writing code with PHP?

That’s just a very broad overview.

You may want to attend our next meetup: http://www.meetup.com/WordpressNYC/events/71818702/

[lester]

steve, thank you for responding!
yes, i have signed up for the next meetup and am looking forward.
i taught myself html and css and thought a CMS was the next logical step, but didn’t bargain for the steep learning curve.
i want to learn how to migrate static HTML pages into blank themes to create dynamic sites and i’m studying PHP (lynda.com) to understand that process.
i’m just having trouble finding one good WP resource for a beginner like myself that can help lift me out of this confused haze i’m stuck in and put all the puzzle pieces together. it’s actually been quite discouraging . . ..

[Joly MacFie]

It’s not a book but this video http://wpnyc.org/video/how-wordpress-works-the-bootup-process/ and the associated post are pretty illuminating.

[Margarete Koenen]

Have you considered trying to find someone who might help you fill in the missing pieces? Since you seem to have good knowledge in some areas and less in others, that might be the way to go.

You might also find the book WordPress All-In-One for Dummies helpful. Since it is a compilation of 8 books by five authors it covers a lot of territory and you might be able to find just what you are looking for.

[David Concepcion]

@Sprout,
I was in the same place as you a few years ago when I began to look at WordPress away from designing sites using Dreamweaver. Deciding where to bengin is one of the most difficult things any one can undertake.

For me, it all started making sense a year ago with this book:

http://www.sitepoint.com/books/wpant1/

The WordPress Anthology is a fantastic resource for beginners with plenty of guided step by step guidance.

[lester]

thank you, all, for your responses. i will check out the recommended book resources.

[lester]

david i’d love to see some of your web work if you have a chance to send a link. thx, L

[Tim Beckett]

@sprout If you’re still following this – I found and still find Digging Into WordPress pretty helpful. It’s a vast book, at lot of it meant for seasoned developers, but has a lot for beginners as well. You can always go back to it as you learn more.

ebook or print: http://digwp.com/

Not cheap but they provide regular ebook updates.

And yes, check out the videos on this site and come to the meetups . . .

Tim

[lester]

tim,

thank you! yes, i am def still following, visiting the site and met a bunch of great people a couple weeks ago at the last meetup. very much looking forward to the next one.

i agree digwp is an excellent resource. still, there could be better ones for people with minimal experience and knowledge like myself. even lynda.com doesn’t provide much which is very surprising to me.

wpnyc is a major saving grace, for certain. i am very appreciative of all the responses i’ve received and as i said, am looking forward to more meetups with some really great folks.

hope to see you there soon, L

[lester]

i’ve been dissecting chris coyier’s blank theme trying to figure out what’s what. it’s interesting and fun, creating colorful formatting to investigate how all the modules fit together like a puzzle.

i’ve recently discovered template pages, which has helped me understand a bit more how to migrate my static site into WP, and i’ve also discovered PHP classes like POST_CLASS() which seems powerful but then again doesn’t seem that different from regular CSS classes except that i don’t have to class all the different tags individually on each page. i can just take advantage of the PHP class. maybe . . . something like that . . . perhaps . . . ?? . . . :o)

one major aspect i’ve yet to understand is a core / basic function set that i can use to take the dynamic content in the admin panel and build, arrange, rearrange, style, combine, edit, etc., etc., that content into my site.

i’ll stop there. just felt like sharing . . . . have a great day, all!

[lester]

re:
digWP
pages 87-90, chapter 4, theme design and development
4.1.1
would have been nice if chris used his own blank theme as a template as an example for customizing the loop with query_posts, as in where the heck do i add the query_posts and do i keep the default loop ??
sheesh!
trial and error is so exhausting!

[Steve]

query_posts goes before the loop. Example in Codex

[lester]

thank you, steve! much appreciated.
i will read and retry . . .
but another day.
today is done.

[Author]

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