My best inspiration: the WordPress forums
The other day I was talking with a friend about the book’s progress. When I mentioned spending time on the WordPress forums he couldn’t understand why I am doing it. I have tried to explain that it helps me but seemingly I couldn’t convince him. Too bad at that time I didn’t have such a clear example like this thread yesterday. Just a sample of a few questions when the new user wants to change (switch) the theme on a WordPress blog installed for her by someone else. (If you don’t know: themes are the exterior, front-end “clothing” of a blog…)
Where is the wp-content/themes directory? How do I find it? Create it? Access it?
If I’ve downloaded an FTP and also have an FTP on my host, how do I get them to make the themes be accessible onto the admin of my wp site?
How do I connect the FTP to the host? And which one?…
In several posts I have tried to clarify some basic notions. So I wrote simple instructions like:
With the FTP program/client (when installed on your computer) you connect your computer and the host computer. FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol. The name should say all: you will be transferring the unzipped files from your computer to the host server. The wp-content/themes/ folder is there (otherwise you wouldn’t see your blog).
Start here:
http://codex.wordpress.org/FTP_ClientsThe first thing you should do:
install that FTP program that you downloaded.
FTP Fugu - that’s the program’software that should be installed on your computer. Most of these gizmos have an automatic installer, you just have to start the process.(Also, .zip files are just compressed version of all the files of a program, so the package is not that huge when downloading…}
It’s been a while since I last used Mac, but I remember there is something on it that you can see the files and folders on your computer. You should always save/store the downloaded and unzipped program files - and theme files for that matter - in their own subfolders in a logical system/structure.
Now what any FTP program does: it has two parallel windows:
- one showing the files and folders on your computer
- the other one (when connected to the server) showing the files and folders thereFrom here is quite logical: you can up- and download = move files in both directions.
That’s the whole idea.
Too bad I couldn’t attach an image to my explanation but I can do it now :) I wouldn’t say this a complete chapter for the book. But it gives you a very clear idea what kind of topics are a must when the target audience is the absolutely non-web-savy future bloggers. They are my potential readers (and buyers, of course). I also have the advantage of coming from a non-technical background, therefore I understand perfectly how difficult is at the beginning to grasp these ideas. Here is my promise: there will definitely be a chapter about FTP and how it works.
