WordPress Documentation Tips and Tricks

Posted on June 12, 2007
Filed Under Real Estate News |

WordPress 2.2 Template Documentation / Themes

After spending a few hours on the phone with my programmer I finally hashed out the format for making a cleaner form of documentation that absolute newbe’s can follow and my only concern is where to place it. I have about a dozen domains I own and administer and I administer or moderate about 12 forums around the web as a favor to the site owners but I want this set of tutorials and documentation elements presented in a site that centralizes the ideology and spirit of open source.

I use to own OpenSourceU.org which I quickly abandoned and I’ve though long about having a centralized tutorial resource for all types of applications I tend to work with and I figure the best place to put this is on my new domain http://www.livedemosite.com where is where all the demo’s will be anyway. So, moving on we start with WordPress.

I absolutely love the work that the developers of WordPress and WordPress MU have done and respect the fact that they do more than just toss together code as many open source app developers have done but one thing has always baffled me. The documentation is in disarray and hard to organize in terms of logical structure. So I asked, “Can a person easily wrap their head around the concepts and technology in WordPress?” No, they can’t! At least not without a great deal of background and experience in these types of things as most would tend to agree.

Now years ago I use to love talking above peoples head after being armed with new technical words in my vocabulary, but today I tend to follow a more pleasant practice of speaking in terms a novice can understand. So why isn’t documentation easily understood by those that teach or use it to inform users on how to use their product? I don’t believe anyone at WordPress is incompetent and I know for a fact that they are sticklers for quality as anyone can see, but I think that sometimes professionals have a hard time speaking basic English when it comes to expressing technical jargon. Why? Because the terms we understand articulate the point faster, we understand the technical vocab. Naturally this poses a problem for the new guy, because that person would first have to learn our jargon and then review what is being documented or instructed before understanding what is being read. I’ve concluded that this is a lofty task we ask our students who read our words in the technical terms we and those like us understand. Onward…

WordPress 2.2 Multi User Documentation / Themes

WordPress MU for instance is NOT for rookies and its NOT for the new guy wanting to setup a blog farm on a $6.95 a month hosting plan. Its best implemented by professionals and hosting companies with a firm understanding of LAMP configuration (although I’ve seen WAMP configured WordPress MU before) and networking, specifically DNS and how to deal with sub domains effectively. Now a common environment most attempt to install WordPress MU on is either cPanel or PLESK but both of these present unique challenges. I’ve installed or administered the installation of WordPress MU across many many genera of sites from education to Real Estate and most of these do not have any particular control panel interface. But when dealing with cPanel and or PLESK many find the installation anything but easy.

So now that we have this ideal format I’ll assemble a nice inventory of startup how tos and examples that follow what we call the “reconnect format” to teach in the most effective way. As an educator who teaches Photoshop, I adhere closely to the philosophies outlined in “The Journal of Effective Teaching” and short 3 - 8 minute tutorials accompanied by follow along written documentation is what you can expect.

WordPress 2.2 Real Estate Templates / Themes

I’m already using this very technique in thebrokersedge.com forum as the new design goes into place members with “X” amount of posts will be able to download and use video tutorials free of charge for those things Real Estate related in terms of technology naturally. I exhaustively cover WordPress in part because of my love for the application and its effectiveness for Real Estate professionals to have a site that is more than just a bunch of gallery images with dorky centered text. These existing videos will be adapted in part to teach WordPress usage as well for this venture.

Now I’m not building alternative documentation for any political motive and its not really designed to replace whats already out there but rather to provide a more structured format in easy to follow and navigate format. What WordPress and WordPress MU do for guys like us is just fine. For the new person, well, lets just say you need to NOT be a new person to follow along.

Check out the demo’s over on http://www.livedemosite.com later in the month.

Comments

Leave a Comment

If you would like to make a comment, please fill out the form below.

Name (required)

Email (required)

Website

Comments


TEMP CODE: GDHXCDX17249629