WORDPRESS

MAJOR PROJECT REPORT

Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the award of the

degree of

BACHELOR OF VOCATIONAL

in

SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT

by

Iris Garg
01724818118

Guided by

Mr. Abhishek Gaur

Professor

AMBEDKAR INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

(AFFILIATED TO GURU GOBIND SINGH INDRAPRASTHA UNIVERSITY,
DELHI) DELHI – 110092

July 2021
 CANDIDATE’S DECLARATION

It is hereby certified that the work which is being presented in the B.Voc Major Project Report entitled
"WEBSIE DESIGNING WITH WORDPRESS" in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the award of
the degree of Bachelor of Vocation and submitted in the Department of Software Development of
AMBEDKAR INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, New Delhi (Affiliated to Guru Gobind Singh
Indraprastha University, Delhi) is an authentic record of our own work carried out during a period from
October 2020 to December 2020 under the guidance of Mr. Abhishek Gaur, Professor.

The matter presented in the B. Voc Major Project Report has not been submitted by me for the award
of any other degree of this or any other Institute.

Iris Garg
01724818118

This is to certify that the above statement made by the candidate is correct to the best of my
knowledge. He/She/They are permitted to appear in the External Major Project Examination

(Mr. ABHISHEK GAUR) (Mr. Shyam Bambiwal)

Professor Head, EEED

The B. Voc Minor Project Viva-Voce Examination of Iris Garg (01724818118) has been held on
……………………………….

(Signature of External Examiner)

Project Coordinator Project Coordinator

ii
 ABSTRACT

WordPress is a free and open-source content management system (CMS) written in PHP
and paired with a MySQL or MariaDB database. Features include plugin architecture
and a template system, referred to within WordPress as Themes. WordPress was
originally created as a blog-publishing system but has evolved to support other types of
web content including more traditional mailing lists and forums, media galleries,
membership sites, learning management systems (LMS) and online stores.

WordPress is a factory that makes webpages is a core analogy designed to clarify the
functions of WordPress: it stores content and enables a user to create and publish
webpages, requiring nothing beyond a domain and a hosting service.
WordPress has a web template system using a template processor. Its architecture is a front
controller, routing all requests for non-static URLs to a single PHP file which parses the
URI and identifies the target page. This allows support for more human-readable
permalinks.
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

We express our deep gratitude to Mr. Abhishek Gaur sir, Professor, Department of Software
Development for his valuable guidance and suggestion throughout my project work. We are thankful
to Abhishek sir, JP Soja Sir and Bambiwal Sir, Project Coordinators, for their valuable guidance.

We would like to extend my sincere thanks to Head of the Department, Mr. Shyam Bambiwal for
his time to time suggestions to complete my project work. I am also thankful to Mrs. Neeru Mehta,
Principal for providing me the facilities to carry out my project work.

Iris Garg
01724818118
 CONTENTS

TOPICS PAGE NO.

TITLE PAGE i

CANDIDATE’S DECLARATION ii

ABSTRACT iii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT iv

CONTENTS v

CHAPTER

1. Introduction to WordPress vii

2. History of WordPress vii

3. WordPress Features viii - xi

4. Themes in WordPress xii-xiv
5. Adding New Themes xv-xvii

6. Activating the Theme xvii

7. Tips for Picking a Theme xviii
8. Plugins xix-xxi
9. Permalinks xxii-xxiii

CONCLUSION xxiv
1. INTRODUCTION TO WORDPRESS

WordPress is an open-source content management system licensed under GPLv2, which means
that anyone can use or modify the WordPress software for free. A content management system is
basically a tool that makes it easy to manage important aspects of your website – like content –
without needing to know anything about programming.

WordPress is a factory that makes webpages is a core analogy designed to clarify the functions of
WordPress: it stores content and enables a user to create and publish webpages, requiring nothing
beyond a domain and a hosting service.

WordPress has a web template system using a template processor. Its architecture is a front
controller, routing all requests for non-static URLs to a single PHP file which parses the URI and
identifies the target page. This allows support for more human-readable permalinks.

2. HISTORY OF WORDPRESS

WordPress first appeared in 2003 as a joint effort between Matt Mullenweg and Mike little to
create a fork of b2. Christine Selleck Tremoulet, a friend of Mullenweg, suggested the
name WordPress.

B2/cafelog, more commonly known as B2 or cafelog, was the precursor to WordPress.

B2/cafelog was estimated to have been installed on approximately 2,000 blogs as of May 2003. It
was written in PHP for use with MySQL by Michel Valdrighi, who is now a contributing
developer to WordPress. Although WordPress is the official successor, another
project, b2evolution, is also in active development.

vii
3. WORDPRESS FEATURES

Plugin System

The WordPress APIs make it possible for you to create plugins to extend WordPress. WordPress’s
extensibility lies in the thousands of hooks at your disposal. Once you’ve created your plugin,
we’ve even got a plugin repository for you to host it on.

Theme System

Create WordPress themes for clients, other WordPress users, or yourself. WordPress provides the
extensibility to create themes as simple or as complex as you wish. If you want to give your theme
away for free you can give it to users in the theme repository.

Application Framework

If you want to build an application, WordPress can help with that too. WordPress provides a lot of
the features under the hood that your app will need: translations, user management, HTTP
requests, databases, URL routing and much, much more. You can also use our REST API to
interact with it.

Custom Content Types

WordPress comes with default content types, but for more flexibility you can add a few lines of
code to create your own custom post types, taxonomies, and metadata. Take WordPress in
whatever direction you wish.
Simplicity

Simplicity makes it possible for you to get online and get publishing, quickly. Nothing should get
in the way of you getting your website up and your content out there. WordPress is built to make
that happen.

Flexibility

With WordPress, you can create any type of website you want: a personal blog or website, a
photoblog, a business website, a professional portfolio, a government website, a magazine or
news website, an online community, even a network of websites. You can make your website
beautiful with themes, and extend it with plugins. You can even build your very own application.

Publish with Ease

If you’ve ever created a document, you’re already a whizz at creating content with WordPress.
You can create Posts and Pages, format them easily, insert media, and with the click of a button
your content is live and on the web.

Publishing Tools

WordPress makes it easy for you to manage your content. Create drafts, schedule publication, and
look at your post revisions. Make your content public or private, and secure posts and pages with
a password.

User Management

Not everyone requires the same access to your website. Administrators manage the site, editors
work with content, authors and contributors write that content, and subscribers have a profile that
they can manage. This lets you have a variety of contributors to your website, and let others
simply be part of your community.

Media Management

They say a picture says a thousand words, which is why it’s important for you to be able to
quickly and easily upload images and media to WordPress. Drag and drop your media into the
uploader to add it to your website. Add alt text and captions, and insert images and galleries into
your content. We’ve even added a few image editing tools you can have fun with.

Full Standards Compliance

Every piece of WordPress generated code is in full compliance with the standards set by the W3C.
This means that your website will work in today’s browser, while maintaining forward
compatibility with the next generation of browser. Your website is a beautiful thing, now and in
the future.

Easy Theme System

WordPress comes bundled with three default themes, but if they aren’t for you there’s a theme
directory with thousands of themes for you to create a beautiful website. None of those to your
taste? Upload your own theme with the click of a button. It only takes a few seconds for you to
give your website a complete makeover.

Extend with Plugins

WordPress comes packed with a lot of features for every user. For every feature that’s not in
WordPress core, there’s a plugin directory with thousands of plugins. Add complex galleries,
social networking, forums, social media widgets, spam protection, calendars, fine-tune controls
for search engine optimization, and forms.
Built-in Comments
Your blog is your home, and comments provide a space for your friends and followers to engage
with your content. WordPress’s comment tools give you everything you need to be a forum for
discussion and to moderate that discussion.

Search Engine Optimized

WordPress is optimized for search engines right out of the box. For more fine-grained SEO
control, there are plenty of SEO plugins to take care of that for you.

Use WordPress in Your Language

WordPress is available in more than 70 languages. If you or the person you’re building the
website for would prefer to use WordPress in a language other than English, that’s easy to do.

Easy Installation and Upgrades

WordPress has always been easy to install and upgrade. Plenty of web hosts offer one-
click WordPress installers that let you install WordPress with, well, just one click! Or, if you’re
happy using an FTP program, you can create a database, upload WordPress using FTP, and run
the installer.
4. THEMES IN WORDPRESS

What is a Theme?

Fundamentally, the WordPress Theme system is a way to “skin” your WordPress site. Yet, it
is more than just a “skin”. Skinning your site implies that only the design is changed.
WordPress Themes can provide much more control over the visual presentation of your
content and other data on your WordPress site, as well as behavior of certain site’s elements
while interacting with visitors.

A WordPress Theme is a collection of files that work together to produce a graphical

interface with an underlying unifying design for a website. These files are called template
files. A Theme modifies the way the site is displayed, without modifying the underlying
software. Themes may include customized template files, image files (*.jpg, *.png, *.gif),
style sheets (*.css), custom Pages, as well as any necessary code files (*.php). For an
introduction to template files, see Template Files.
Default Themes

WordPress currently comes with three themes: the default Twenty Nineteen theme (demo),
and the previous defaults Twenty Seventeen (demo) and Twenty Sixteen (demo) themes.

You can switch between Themes using the Appearance in the Administration Screen.
Themes you add to the theme directory will appear in the Administration
Screen > Appearance > Themes as additional selections.
Get New Themes

The WordPress Theme Directory is the official site for WordPress Themes. Every theme in
this directory is reviewed by a dedicated team and tested against wide range of rules, all of
which are ensuring secure and pleasant experience for theme user.

Among almost 2,900 themes in directory, you can easily find the right one for your site with
advanced search feature using filters for layout, subject and specific theme’s features.
5. ADDING NEW THEMES

Adding New Themes using the Administration Screens

You can download any theme from WordPress Theme Directory directly to your site by
using the Add New option in the Appearance sub-menu.

1. Log in to the WordPress Administration Screens.

2. Select the Appearance screen, then Themes.
3. Select Add New.
4. Either use the Search or Filter options to locate a Theme you would like to use.
5. Click on the Preview link to preview the Theme or the Install link to upload the Theme
to your site,
6. Or use the Upload Theme button at the top of page to upload a zipped copy of a Theme
that you have previously downloaded to your machine.

s5.2 Adding New Themes by using cPanel

 If your host offers the cPanel control panel, you can use its Upload option to upload the
Theme files to your site. For this you will need Theme files in an compressed archive
(.zip or .gz).

1. Download the Theme .zip file to your machine.

2. In cPanel File Manager, navigate to your Themes folder. Depending on your hosting, path
to Themes folder can differ a bit but essentially you are looking for public_html inside
which you’ll find /wp-content/themes/.
3. Once you’re inside the Themes folder in cPanel File Manager, click on Upload and
upload that .zip file you saved in Step 1.
4. Once the .zip file is uploaded, right click on the name of that file in cPanel
and select Extract from the context menu.
5. When Theme files are successfully extracted, follow the instructions below for activating
the new Theme.

Adding New Themes Manually (FTP)

To add a new Theme to your WordPress installation via FTP protocol, you’ll need FTP client and
extracted Theme files.

1. Download the Theme archive (.zip) and extract the files it contains. You should have
a folder named as theme itself, containing theme files.
2. Using an FTP client to access your host web server and navigate to /wp-
content/themes/ directory.
3. Upload the Theme folder to this directory on your host server.
 4. Follow the instructions below for activating the new Theme.

6. ACTIVATING THE THEME

To activate a Theme for your site:

1. Log in to the WordPress Administration Screens.

2. Select the Appearance screen, then Themes.
3. You should see here all themes from your /wp-content/themes/ directory and from here you
can see details for each of them by clicking on Theme Details (rollover the Theme
thumbnail).
4. Live Preview option will give you preview of your site with your site’s content.
5. To activate the Theme click the Activate

button. Your selection will immediately become

active.
7. TIPS FOR PICKING A THEME

• As you’re browsing through themes keep your limitations in mind. If you’ve decided you don’t
want to mess with the code, look for a theme with a style manager for easy customization or look
for a theme that is already exactly how you want it so it won’t need any customizing.

• What kind of a site are you creating? If it’s not a standard blog, you might need to widen your
search. Most free themes are focused on the simple blog design.

• Colors and header images are often changeable, so you may not need to worry about those.
Instead, pay attention to the structure of the site. Do you want one sidebar or two? Do you like the
menu where it is? If you’re willing to make tweaks anything can be changed, but you want to find
a theme that needs the least customization.

• Browse through a theme’s test site or preview. Don’t just look at a screenshot of the theme. Play
around with it. Navigate through the site. Notice the differences between the home page and the
individual posts.

• Pay attention to how a theme handles different elements. Do you like how blockquotes and
images are displayed? Are pages and posts handled differently?

• You might even want to download a theme and take a look at the code. Is it well organized and
easy to edit? There’s nothing worse than picking a theme and discovering the code is a horrible
mess when you try to customize it.

• Make sure your theme is compatible with the latest version of WordPress. You want to take
advantage of all the newest features and you can’t do that with an outdated theme.

The more time you spend figuring out what you want and then selecting the right theme, the less
frustrated you’ll be. You can always change themes easily, but you want to spend your time
creating content, not constantly tweaking the design.
8. PLUGINS

What Is a Plugin?

WordPress Plugins are pieces of software that extend the core capabilities of WordPress.

They let you do more. Since WordPress is open source software, these are all third party

tools that add-on to what WordPress can do. They’re easy to download and install. Some are

premium (there is a fee to purchase them) and others are free. You may want to read the

“Getting Started with Plugins” ebook available from PluginBuddy.com. This 21-page (free)

guide gives you the best practices you should be using when working with plugins. Plugins

can do things like improve your search engine optimization (All-in-One SEO Pack), display

related posts in your sidebar (Yet Another Related Posts Plugin), do complete backups of

your WordPress site (Backup Buddy) or create stunning web forms quickly and easily

(Gravity Forms). You can add just about any functionality to WordPress with plugins. The

WordPress Plugin Directory is a repository of free plugins that have been (somewhat) vetted.

There are currently more than 18,000 plugins in the WordPress directory, so there’s a lot to

choose from.

Adding Plugins

It’s easy to add new plugins to WordPress. Go to Plugins > Add New and you’ve got several

options.

Search & Install

Your first option is to search the WordPress Plugin Directory right here. You can find a

plugin and install it from here. Once the plugin is installed, just click ‘Activate.’ © 2011

iThemes Media LLC. “Getting Started with WordPress” v.1.0 (last updated: 03/10/12) All
rights reserved in all media. May be shared with copyright and credit left intact. 40 You may

need the login information for your site’s host to automatically install plugins. You can get

this information from your web host and it’s likely the same info you needed to set up

WordPress.

Download & Upload

The second option is to download a plugin from a third party source. It will usually come as

a .zip file. At the top of the Plugin page click on “Add New”, then “Upload” and you can

upload that .zip file. Once it’s uploaded and installed, just click ‘Activate.’ We also

recommend using the Easy Theme and Plugin Upgrades plugin. This will make it easy to

upload your plugins without fear of losing any data. This is a free plugin from iThemes,

provided through the WordPress.org Plugin Directory.

Manual Installation

You can also add plugins manually by uploading them with FTP software. This is more

complicated and not for the novice user. You’ll need to download a plugin to your computer

and unzip it. This will give you a folder on your computer with all the plugin files. Then,

using an FTP program, upload the plugin folder to the wpcontent/plugins folder on your site.

Then go to the Plugins screen and you can find your new plugin in the list. Click ‘Activate’

to get started. (Some hosts allow you to upload the zip file to the wp-content/plugins folder

and then unzip from within that folder.)

Choosing Plugins
With so many plugins out there it’s helpful to understand a little about how they’re organized

and how the process works.

First off, the WordPress Plugin Directory is the best source for free plugins. These plugins

have been vetted by the WordPress community to ensure there are no malicious plugins or

nefarious code. But that doesn’t mean every plugin in the directory works perfectly. Some

will even break your site. But they are free…and sometimes you get what you pay for.

Keep this in mind as you browse the directory. Some plugins might be several years old and

haven’t been updated. They may work just fine. Or they might cause all sorts of problems.

Just be aware of what you’re installing and don’t be surprised if you need to delete a plugin

and find a new one.(It’s also a good idea to install one plugin at a time and check your site

after each installation. That way if your site breaks, it’s easy to know which plugin caused it

and you can go back and delete it.)

While many plugins are free, the person who created them put a lot of time and effort into

developing them. So keep that in mind when you use a free plugin. It’s good practice to

consider making a donation to the developer when you use one of their free plugins. This is a

good way to say thanks and help them continue their development work.
9. Permalinks

One of the first settings you’ll want to change on your new WordPress site is the permalinks.

Permalinks are the direct, permanent links to any content on your site. It’s what other websites

will use to link to your content. By default, WordPress creates permalinks that are less than

useful. They have question marks and lots of numbers that are completely meaningless to the

average user. They look like this:

http://www.mysite.com/?p=206

That garbled mess isn’t helpful to anybody, including search engines. These links obviously

work— that number is the ID of the content and they get people where they need to go. But

they don’t tell the reader – or search engines – very much, hence they aren’t very useful. A

simple improvement is to make your permalinks user friendly. Useful permalinks look like this:

http://www.mysite.com/title-of-your-post

That makes your links a lot more useful. It improves the aesthetics, usability and forward

compatibility of the links. It’s not only good for humans looking at links, but it can also help your

search engine ranking. Having real words in the URL, especially keywords for your content, is a

good search engine optimization (SEO) strategy.

These improved, user- and search-engine-friendly permalinks are sometimes called pretty

permalinks. And it’s easy to use them in WordPress.

  Setting Your Permalinks

From the WordPress Dashboard go to Settings > Permalinks to change your permalink

settings

The ‘Post name’ setting will give you a simple URL like this:

http://www.mysite.com/title-of-your-post

Just select ‘Post name’. You’ll see the new format appear in the Custom Structure field.

Remember to ‘Save Changes’ at the bottom. There are plenty of other permalink options you

can use there, but in general simpler is better.

Conclusion

This course has been an excellent and rewarding experience. I can conclude that there have

been a lot I’ve learnt from my work through online teaching. Needless to say, the technical

aspects of the work I’ve done are not flaw less and could be improved provided enough

time. As someone who was just interested in WordPress, whatsoever I believe my time spent

in research and discovering new tools was well worth it and contributed to finding an

acceptable solution to an important aspect of web design and development. Two main things

that I’ve learned are: the importance of time-management skills and self-motivation.