WordPress for Dummies

Covers lots of material.

I waited so long for WordPress For Dummies, by Lisa Sabin-Wilson, and it was well worth the wait. I had been wanting to learn Wordpress and had been a fan of Lisa's blog so it was just what I needed as a motivator. It's a "Dummies" book so it's got that easy to use format. And it's a reference book so most of it is not meant to be read linearly. If you've always wanted to set up a blog or switch to WordPress this is the way to go. It explains it from the basics up to the advanced. It's step by step and it'll get you running on your own host or at [...] with ease. It covers Migrating to WP, 10 Great Free Themes, Ten Great Plugins, Using WP as a Content Management System, Understanding Templates and Plug-ins. It covers pretty much everything you need to know but those are the chapters I've read the most and use for reference. If you don't know anything about PHP you'll painlessly learn the bits that you do need to know for modifying templates (this is optional) and you'll have picked up enough for when you want to use PHP for other "web stuff". As I'm writing this post, I'm flipping through the book seeing if there is anything I've missed mentioning. There are so many areas of WP that I haven't explored yet, I've read about them in the book and I can't wait to try out some of the other features! Just about everything I've needed to know was in there, the only thing that I couldn't find was detailed info on custom-fields which was (probably) considered too advanced for a Dummies book. There are 3 different flavors of WordPress (they host, you host, and multi-user) and they all share multiple features so just pay attention to which flavor she's talking about and you'll be fine. It's an awesome book! If you want to set up your own blog, self-hosted or not, WordPress is easy to use and WordPress For Dummies is the book to use. And since WP just significantly increased the amount of free-space for the "they host" option free just got better!

I've found that the Dummies book run the gamut from very, very bad to very, very good. I am pleased to report that "WordPress for Dummies" by Lisa Sabin-Wilson is very, very good. This book will be useful to novice WordPress users (like myself) through, I suspect, intermediate users. The first part is a tad on the slow side as Sabin-Wilson reviews the true basics. But she is trying to cover a good part of the waterfront here, helping truly inexperienced users as well as those who may have used Blogger, MovableType or other blogging platforms. By Chapter 3, though, Sabin-Wilson begins to hit her stride, delving deeper into the hosted version of WordPress, examining its details. With Chapter 6, she begins transitioning into a surprisingly comprehensive exploration of WordPress. Chapter 9, about altering PHP templates, is a model of clarity that all technical writers could benefit from studying. It is concise and clear, while handling some very sophisticated subjects. By the time Sabin-Wilson gets to Chapter 16 ("Beyond Blogging: WordPress as a Content Management System"), the reader is comfortable with this advanced subject. Overall, she does a truly fine job of introducing the reader to WordPress, how it operates, how it can be modified and expanded. Her language is always remarkably clear and her focus intense. This is one of those essentially technical books that is actually a pleasure to read. Keep it at your side while you explore WordPress, either hosted on your own or the WordPress site, and you'll become highly proficient in a surprisingly short time. Jerry

This is a great introduction to WordPress. I've set over a dozen clients up with WordPress in the last three years and as simple as WordPress is to administer, they still need hand holding. Before this there has not been a book on WordPress that I could comfortably recommend. WordPress for Dummies assumes no blogging or technical background and does a good job of explaining the basics. It is not a developer's manual so if you need detailed instructions on writing your own modules or hacking WP, look elsewhere. But that's what I expect from Dummies books. I appreciated that Sabin-Wilson covered the three versions of WordPress in order of increasing complexity. For the non-technical the hosted version of WordPress is a great place to begin. For those needing more there are the install-it-yourself versions. I didn't notice any mention of hosting companies that offer 1 click installs of the regular version WordPress, which is pretty common. That's about the only quibble I have with the book. I even learned about the multi-user version of WP, something I had only a fuzzy awareness of. I'd easily recommend WordPress for Dummies to anybody who needs to run blog or to budding web designers who would like to expend their toolkit.

I've been working on and off with WordPress for years, but have never had the patience to dig deeper than I needed to. I've always wanted to learn more and when I got my copy, I tore into it, looking up all the things I've always wanted to know. Now I keep it on my desk and have referenced it several times already. Lisa gets it right with this book by providing so much information on all varieties of WordPress yet keeps it from being overly complicated. A staple for any WordPress novice and handy for those of us who just need a little refresher now and again.

Prior to Wordpress for Dummies being published, the other Wordpress books out there were very limited or not extensively covered. For those of you who have tried to use Wordpress before, I know the Wordpress Codex or documentation may seem overwhelming due to its extensive coverage. This book does a great job of really giving you the ins and outs of Wordpress. The author tries to cover the most important features of Wordpress without trying to overwhelm the readers and does a very good job of it. I really liked the part about the author covering the MU feature of Wordpress as well as covering the common used template tags in addition making the templates, 'the loop' and template files easy to understand for beginners. If you are already proficient with CSS/XHTML and want to take your blog/sites to the next level, this book is for you. However, this book does NOT teach you CSS/XHTML (does provide other resources in the book) so I would suggest you pick up another book for that. If you want to know about WP and blogging in general, this book is for you.