Smashing Magazine was founded in September 2006 for the purpose of delivering innovative information for designers and Web developers. The goal of the site is to inform their readers about the latest trends in Web development. In Smashing WordPress: Beyond The Blog, Thord Daniel Hedengren takes on the task of showing you how to build sites that go beyond the obvious.
The goal of Smashing WordPress: Beyond The Blog is to present the core concepts that will let you utilize the power of the WordPress platform while providing you with creative spark to help you build just about any site imaginable. This book is 322 pages divided into 15 chapters and five parts.
The WordPress Essentials
Chapter One, "Anatomy of a WordPress Install," dives into how to properly install and set up your WordPress system. Topics cover database setup, security, backing up, and even how to switch from one host to another.
Chapter Two, "The WordPress Syntax," examines how WordPress, written in the PHP language, is built on themes which consist of template files that contain tags. You will get very familiar with all of these concepts in this chapter.
Chapter Three, "The Loop," is a snippet of PHP code that is at the heart of WordPress. While it may feel tricky to work with at first, if you want to become an expert WordPress developer, learning the loop will put you in control.
Designing and Developing WordPress Themes
Chapter Four, "The WordPress Theme Essentials," begins the building process part of this book. This chapter gets you started with working with themes so that you will see how they work and learn how to alter them to fit your needs.
Chapter Five, "The Child Theme Concept," gives you the ability to build upon a theme without actually altering the theme. These child themes contain mostly visual enhancements so that you can update the core theme without breaking anything.
Article comments
1 - Sergio
I fully agree with you that the book is great. It does have many great fundamental points for beginners to grasp the basic theme structure. I first hesitated on purchasing the book but after reading it I was pleased on how well the explanations and tutorials were written.
2 - Fitz
Great review... I've been wondering about digging into WP more deeply, and now I have a new book to pick up. Thanks!