Class 03 Research Presentation Summaries

Michael:

This week I dove more into the CMS WordPress. It is built of a series of lots and lots of php files that in the end created the usual Blogger style post-and publish format we are all used to. Here is a REALLY helpful video I found that goes into greater detail breaking down how a simple page theme works, explaining the WORDPRESS MODULAR SYSTEM.

A theme in WordPress is kind of like the templates we've built in class. As of this post there are 1,314 themes available at WordPress.org and they each come with their own set of CSS defaults that one can go in to manipulate to design a page how they would like it to be viewed. They range all the way from bare-bones pages with almost no CSS attached to highly designed themes as well. From my knowledge so far, I would think it easier to build up from a more bare theme and add your styles to it.

I also found a couple of videos on how to make a WordPress site and go live from finding a webhost and domain name to posting the site live. Those to videos are below. The tutorial dude is kind of, well, I'd say pompous with an almost "I can't believe I have to explain this but whatevs" sort of attitude, but he is very good at breaking down the process step by step:

Video 1
Video 2

And then I found this site that showcases the range of uses for WordPress in terms of building sites for a variety of functions (corporations, personal sites, non-profits, portfolios, etc.)

I will next be diving into the plug-ins associated with WordPress and seeing what their limits are, as well as clarifying what the "serialized content" is for a WordPress site, and (hopefully) begin to setup a custom themed page for my own test site.

Chiao:

Structural pseudo-classes (Thinking from right to left)

Examples:

tr:nth-child(2n+1) /* represents every odd row of an HTML table */

tr:nth-child(odd) /* same */

tr:nth-child(2n+0) /* represents every even row of an HTML table */

tr:nth-child(even) /* same */

/* Alternate paragraph colours in CSS */

p:nth-child(4n+1) { color: navy; }

p:nth-child(4n+2) { color: green; }

p:nth-child(4n+3) { color: maroon; }

p:nth-child(4n+4) { color: purple; }

Tutorial Vedio