Website virgin

[JohnRoss]

For me to make a start, what do I need (in the most basic laymans handholding terms please).

Download WP,

WordPress › Download

Unzip it. Create a directory in your domain, e.g.

http://yourdomain.com/learning

Upload your unzipped WP files to that folder.

Install, following the instructions at

Getting Started with WordPress « WordPress Codex

Muck around with it. A lot. You need to get your hands dirty to learn.

[YellowPeril]

I know it all appears to be a lot of mucking about, but I'm determined to do this myself. This is how I've learned every programme I use and I've (eventually) become very proficient in them all.

Coreldraw fell by the wayside many years ago and now it looks like Quark is going to head the same way. I've grudgingly taught myself InDesign, which I expect I'll get to like - but that's life.

Does anyone miss marking up type and waiting overnight to get galleys back?(at this point, several generations of designers scratch their heads wondering what the old git is rambling on about)

[Paul Murray]

Just thought I'd mention that to use Wordpress as a CMS you'll need a MySQL database available through your hosting package if you haven't already.

For testing offline I highly recommend xampplite - apache friends - xampp

It basically installs an Apache server and MySQL database locally on your machine (you can even use it from a flash drive and take it with you) so you can play around with wordpress, change source code, modify themes, etc, then upload the changes to your webserver). It's available for Mac and PC.

[OutTheBox]

I am also oblivious to HTML,CSS, etc etc....having tried hard to learn Dreamweaver also - to be honest, I gave up! So, I looked at wordpress, and found the 'system' very convoluted.

Eventually I used wix.com - suits a web phobe like myself, and made my site look exactly how I wanted;
Minimal, easy to navigate, easy to build, and also has a wide variety of skins etc. I am also impressed about the support in pointing to a domain etc...suits me!