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Wordpress Bible
Get the latest word on the biggest self-hosted blogging tool on the marketWithin a week of the announcement of WordPress 3.0, it had been downloaded over a million times. Now you can get on the bandwagon of this popular open-source blogging tool with WordPress Bible, 2nd Edition. Whether you're a casual blogger or programming pro, this comprehensive guide covers the latest version of WordPress, from the basics through advanced application development. If you want to thoroughly learn WordPress, this is the book you need to succeed.Explores the principles of blogging, marketing, and social media interactionShows you how to install and maintain WordPressThoroughly covers WordPress basics, then ramps up to advanced topicsGuides you through best security practices as both a user and a developerHelps you enhance your blog's findability in major search engines and create customizable and dynamic themesAuthor maintains a high-profile blog in the WordPress community, Technosailor.comTech edited by Mark Jaquith, one of the lead developers of WordPressThe "WordPress Bible" is the only resource you need to learn WordPress from beginning to end.
720 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2010
6 people are currently reading
77 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
September 9, 2021
This is a comprehensive WordPress book; topics include getting started, plugin development, theme development, content management, and maintenance. I focused on SEO, plugin recommendations, and theme development, and skimmed plugin development. My favorite parts were those about SEO for WordPress, CPTs (custom post types), the Loop and WP_Query, template files, hooks, template tags, and theme best practices.
This book is by far the largest, most technical WordPress book I’ve read so far. It’s the perfect desk reference for WordPress developers. Its 700+ pages contain explanations, PHP i snippets, and tables of hooks, tags, and parameters. The book was published in 2011 and covers WordPress 3.1. Author Aaron Brazell is a WordPress core contributor, and technical editor Mark Jaquith is one of the WordPress core developers.
The book focuses almost exclusively on PHP, and barely discusses HTML, CSS, JavaScript. The author recommends reading HTML XHTML and CSS Bible by Wiley to learn HTML and CSS.
Theme and plugin development
• register_sidebars creates multiple widgetized areas (sidebars). You can even skip arguments to use WordPress defaults.
• home.php displays the home page of the blog, not necessarily the homepage of the site. is_home() is true when on the blog home page.
The WordPress database
• The db object is assigned to the handler $wbdb. When you need to interact with the database, make the $wpdb object global with global $wpdb;.
• The posts table is a good place to store data, as an alternative to creating new tables. WordPress ignores post_types it doesn’t recognize.
• The options table should be used to store settings.
• Use insert() to insert data into MySQL. Data should be raw (unescaped) since WordPress handles sanitization.
• Use $wpdb->prepare() to sanitize SQL statements to protect against SQL injection.
Data sanitization
• esc_html() takes a string of text to be enid as a single argument, and returns a sanitized string of HTML to a variable.
• esc_attr() escapes HTML attributes. Its usage is identical to esc_html().
• esc_url() sanitizes URLs, and esc_url_raw() sanitizes URLs for non-HTML use.
• prepare() escapes data going into MySQL.
Plugin recommendations
• All in One SEO Pack for SEO
• Custom Post Type UI for custom post types and taxonomies
• WP Super Cache or W3 Total Cache (more advanced) for caching
• Role Manager for managing roles and capabilities
• IntenseDebate Comments for comments
• Polldaddy Polls & Ratings for polls and surveys
Theme recommendations
• Free theme frameworks: Twenty Ten, Thematic
• Premium theme frameworks: Genesis by StudioPress, Builder by iThemes
Host recommendations
• WordPress-optimized hosts: Page.ly and WP Engine
• Shared hosts: DreamHost and BlueHost
This book is by far the largest, most technical WordPress book I’ve read so far. It’s the perfect desk reference for WordPress developers. Its 700+ pages contain explanations, PHP i snippets, and tables of hooks, tags, and parameters. The book was published in 2011 and covers WordPress 3.1. Author Aaron Brazell is a WordPress core contributor, and technical editor Mark Jaquith is one of the WordPress core developers.
The book focuses almost exclusively on PHP, and barely discusses HTML, CSS, JavaScript. The author recommends reading HTML XHTML and CSS Bible by Wiley to learn HTML and CSS.
Theme and plugin development
• register_sidebars creates multiple widgetized areas (sidebars). You can even skip arguments to use WordPress defaults.
• home.php displays the home page of the blog, not necessarily the homepage of the site. is_home() is true when on the blog home page.
The WordPress database
• The db object is assigned to the handler $wbdb. When you need to interact with the database, make the $wpdb object global with global $wpdb;.
• The posts table is a good place to store data, as an alternative to creating new tables. WordPress ignores post_types it doesn’t recognize.
• The options table should be used to store settings.
• Use insert() to insert data into MySQL. Data should be raw (unescaped) since WordPress handles sanitization.
• Use $wpdb->prepare() to sanitize SQL statements to protect against SQL injection.
Data sanitization
• esc_html() takes a string of text to be enid as a single argument, and returns a sanitized string of HTML to a variable.
• esc_attr() escapes HTML attributes. Its usage is identical to esc_html().
• esc_url() sanitizes URLs, and esc_url_raw() sanitizes URLs for non-HTML use.
• prepare() escapes data going into MySQL.
Plugin recommendations
• All in One SEO Pack for SEO
• Custom Post Type UI for custom post types and taxonomies
• WP Super Cache or W3 Total Cache (more advanced) for caching
• Role Manager for managing roles and capabilities
• IntenseDebate Comments for comments
• Polldaddy Polls & Ratings for polls and surveys
Theme recommendations
• Free theme frameworks: Twenty Ten, Thematic
• Premium theme frameworks: Genesis by StudioPress, Builder by iThemes
Host recommendations
• WordPress-optimized hosts: Page.ly and WP Engine
• Shared hosts: DreamHost and BlueHost
June 23, 2012
Great reference for WordPress web developers on all levels. Topics covered include simple operational instructions and explanations all the way up to custom loops, queries and custom plugins. Complete reference of actions, hooks and template tags in the appendixes. Awesome book for when you want a quick answer instead of searching through the Codex.
October 29, 2013
I wanted to like this a lot more than I did. The rating is due to how useful the book was personally to me, not how useful it could be to someone else, especially if they code. It was easier for me to look in the Wordpress forum or google tutorials than to use the book. Still, it looks amazing if you're into tweaking the code or maybe creating a child theme yourself.
October 24, 2012
I've met Aaron personally and he's definitely an expert in this field. Easy to read and grasp and lots of code samples to explain different scenarios. I've always been a fan of the Bible tech series and this one doesn't disappoint. Recommended for any WordPress gurus and newbies alike.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews