Three Awesome Tools To Help You Better Understand WordPress

WordPress is a widely used content management system that is typically associated with Blogs but can power any kind of setup from a portfolio to an e-commerce site. Whether you’re a Blogger, novice developer or avid web designer, understanding WordPress can greatly benefit your work. Here’s 3 tools to get a grip on WordPress.

Smashing Magazine

I was first turned on to Smashing Magazine by a teacher and have pored through every nook and cranny of the site and its network since. Smashing Magazine, its collection of Blogs and well-written books are a tremendous source of knowledge and inspiration. The tutorials, collection of WordPress themes and books on development and design will help you master WordPress.

Get A Cheat Sheet

In school teachers aggressively discourage cheating. When coding, having a cheat sheet makes life a lot easier. Memorizing syntax and code isn’t an overnight process which is why having a wallpaper plastered with the information you need is extremely helpful. Quickly Code has an awesome wallpaper with all the PHP shortcuts you’ll need when developing a WordPress theme.

See Also

How to Structure a Blog Post to Better Engage Your Readers

Get Down And Dirty!

The simplest way to learn WordPress (and potentially anything) is to get down and dirty with hands on learning. Install WordPress on a server, download a theme you find interesting and tear through the code. I got a better grasp on how WordPress worked by finding snippets of codes, Googling them to find out how it worked and broke my theme in the process. I learned HTML and CSS along the way and am getting a hold on PHP but breaking a theme in half taught me a lot about designing one.