Skip to Content
WordPress: The Missing Manual, 3rd Edition
book

WordPress: The Missing Manual, 3rd Edition

by Matthew MacDonald
October 2020
Beginner
490 pages
14h 46m
English
O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Audiobook available
Content preview from WordPress: The Missing Manual, 3rd Edition

Chapter 1: The WordPress Landscape

Since you picked up this book, it's likely that you already know at least a bit about WordPress. You probably realize that it's a great tool for creating a huge variety of websites, from gossipy blogs to serious business sites. However, you might be a bit fuzzy on the rest of the equation—in other words, how WordPress actually works its magic.

This short chapter will introduce you to the WordPress way of life. First, you'll take a peek at the inner machinery that makes WordPress tick. If you're not already clear on why WordPress is so wonderful—and how it's going to save you days of work, years of programming experience, and a headful of gray hairs—this discussion will fill you in. After that, you'll take a quick look at the types of sites you can build with WordPress. As you'll see, WordPress began life as a blogging system but has since mutated into a flexible, easy-to-use tool for creating virtually any sort of site.

How WordPress Works

You probably already realize that WordPress isn't just a tool to build web pages. After all, anybody can create a web page—you just need to know a bit about HTML (the language that web pages are written in) and a bit about CSS (the language that formats web pages so they look beautiful). It also helps to have a good web page editor at your fingertips. Meet these requirements, and you'll be able to build a static website—one that looks nice enough, but doesn't actually do anything (Figure 1-1).

Figure ...

Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.

Read now

Unlock full access

More than 5,000 organizations count on O’Reilly

AirBnbBlueOriginElectronic ArtsHomeDepotNasdaqRakutenTata Consultancy Services

QuotationMarkO’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.
Julian F.
Head of Cybersecurity
QuotationMarkI wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.
Addison B.
Field Engineer
QuotationMarkI’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.
Amir M.
Data Platform Tech Lead
QuotationMarkI'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.
Mark W.
Embedded Software Engineer

You might also like

WordPress All-In-One For Dummies, 4th Edition

WordPress All-In-One For Dummies, 4th Edition

Lisa Sabin-Wilson

Publisher Resources

ISBN: 9781492074151Errata Page