CMS: A journey into the unknown

Hey everybody, I will be at the Leid Library Saturday at around 1pm if anybody wants to meet up and work on some website stuff. I’d like to get a prototype of the maryland project up and running and maybe decide on a name and work on some artwork, or the google map. Post here if you might come down.

EDIT: Also me and Hepi and April will be getting some lunch somewhere at noon if you want to show up a bit early. IHOP?

Sweeeet it embeds in HD folks.

edit: it appears that the video has somehow become sd(not hd). that is just maddening. vimeo must have revoked its embeded HD api. and i thought i was getting somewhere.

edit: it works again, joy.

Here are the pictures, sorry they’re all facing the wrong way. The top two are for the Maryland Parkway project with the homepage on top, and the map page in the middle.

The journalism department’s homepage is on the bottom (obviously).

Basically, widgets are plugins.

WordPress plugins give users the ability to do more with their blog. According to WordPress.org, “Plugins are tools to extend the functionality of WordPress.”

Widgets is just a weird name for the sidebar-chopping plugin. This plugin allows the user to add certain features to their WordPress site without knowing a thing about HTML.

Okay folks.  I found a free FTP program for us PC users (all 95-percent of us) that seems to work well.  There are hundreds out there, some free and some not.  The one I chose (because it was first on the Google search) is called SmartFTP.  It functions similarly to CyberDuck.

Under Hepi’s inspired example, I’ll attempt to give you a brief tutorial on how to download the program and how to sign on to your FTP host with it.

First go to the http://www.smartftp.com.

Click on the big link that says, “Download SmartFTP Now!”

Next, choose either the 64-bit version or the 32-bit.  If you’re one of the poor souls using Vista or if you have a 64-bit version of XP, you’ll want the 64-bit version.  If you are running regular XP or if you don’t have a clue, just get the 32-bit version.

It will take you to the download.com page.  Just click on “Download Now.”

Follow all the download and install prompts.  The program will install on your desktop.  Open the program.

Once the program is open, select File and Click on New Remote Browser.  Or just hit Ctrl + N on your keyboard.

A new window will appear requiring you to fill out your FTP information.  It’s similar to how we did it on CyberDuck, accept the “Path” section is not hidden.

Make sure you select SFTP in the “Protocol” section.

Enter the FTP information as you did on CyberDuck and click OK.

That’s it.  You should be in.  It looks like the click-and-drag interface is pretty much the same as “the duck.”

Hope that helps.

So the only reason we couldn’t upload plugins is because we didn’t have the appropriate permissions. Josh is working on giving us access but can’t do so immediately, he has a heavy workload and explained that it is a 10 step process in order to give us access. 10 x 8 (cause there are 8 of us) = 80 steps of typing in code which also equals a not very fun time. But it should be resolved sometime this week.

So, most of us are very far beyond this point, however, I’m going to layout the steps to take before you follow Heperi’s instructions.

My domain was still pointed at Verio, so with the help of Derek, we went back to step one. Once you have a domain name bought and paid for, you will receive a confirmation from Verio that assigns you a temporary user name and password. Log into your Verio account with the temporary name and password and you should be brought to a home page with various options on it.

On the left side bar, click on Site Map which will bring you to a screen with a bunch of options. Click on Domain List. This will bring you to the control panel. Toward the right, click on the drop down menu that says –choose action–. Click Edit Zone File. This brings you to the screen in which you need to input your IP address from the confirmation e-mail. Insert that IP address in all the “A” slots. Save and you’re done!

Then, you’re ready to go tackle Heperi’s instructions.

K so I talked to Josh today and he showed me how to upload a theme. It was actually shown in the screenshot he sent us but none of us caught it.

Ok so when you’re in cyberduck and connecting to the server you must click the more options button like so:

then it should show this:

So then all you got to do is type in where it says “path”: /home/jmsunlv08/webapps/”yourname”/wp-content

“path” is the path of folders you need to get through in order to gain access to where the word press sites are held.

For another example here is one of the screen shots from Josh demonstrating the filepath on Stephanie’s account:

Notice how Josh’s is a little different from mine, but all you need to do enter the correct username, password, server (your domain name with out the http://www. prefix) and  path (/home/jms08/webapps/”yourname”/wp-content) and you should be able to upload themes and plugins to your wordpress.

Once you connect to the server Cyberduck should display this:

So if you want to add a theme to your wordpress just go to http://themes.wordpress.net/, download a theme, uncompress it, and drag the folder into the “themes” folder shown in cyberduck. shown above, and it should show up as an optional theme in the “presentation” section of your wordpress blog.

Now it is time for sleep.

ok so I just realized the document I uploaded to the google docs did not have the right passwords. I have uploaded every pdf with the correct password and login for the ftp server. Just download the pdf file named after you and it will give you the info you need. The pass is in a green font at the top of the pdf, and the login is in the next paragraph. I will also edit my last post to reflect this correction.

Hey everybody here is a little refresher on how to login to your website and connect to the FTP (mac only).

First off go to the website that you leased from Verio (in my case www.heperi.biz). You should see something that looks like this:

As pictured go down to the “meta” section and click “login.” That should bring you to this:

Then quickly go check your email and look for an email sent by Charlotte Anne titled “website stuff” sent Thu, Mar 6, 2008. It will contain your pass but THE LOGIN IN THAT EMAIL IS NOT THE LOGIN, by default it will be “admin”.

So once you’re in that you have full access to your very own blog, go ahead and make yourself an administrative account not called admin. Its regular old wordpress from there.

On to the FTP.

So our websites are all being hosted by Josh Williams and in order to add any themes or widgets to our wordpress blogs we have to FTP (which is basically fancy talk to send) the addons to Josh’s server.

First of all you’re going to need an FTP client to send files to Josh’s FTP server. Josh recommended “Cyberduck” which you can download from www.cyberduck.ch

Open up cyberduck and you should see this:

Click on the Open Connection button in the top right. That should give you a little pull down menu that looks like this.

First of all in the protocol field channel change it from the default “FTP (file transfer protocol” to “SFTP (SSH Secure File Transfer)”. Then enter in the server field type in the URL of your site without the “http://www.”

Ok for your username and password go to the google group and download the pdf file named after you (hepi.pdf for example) which will all be under the “Files” section on the right hand navigation tab thingee. Open the pdf and the pass will be up top in green, and the username is just below that. Enter in that info and press the blue connect button on Cyberduck. A warning will pop up that says its an unfamiliar server or something, but just click “allow” and you should be into the server and Cyberduck will look like this:

The bar that crosses the top that originally said “cyberduck” should now have your username @ your website. Also you will notice the pull down menu has changed.

That was about as far as we got, however if you want to upload something to josh’s server its as simple as clicking, dragging and dropping a file on that window in the large area that looks like lined paper. We tried to upload some themes but the wordpress sites themselves are in a part of Josh’s server we currently don’t have access to. It uploaded perfectly fine, its just that it didn’t register within the particular wordpress site we tried, but just because we couldn’t do it doesn’t mean its not possible.

If your on a PC I’m sure the process is very similar however, you will need to find a different ftp client. They’re easy to find at places like www.download.com. It’ll probably look different but if you have the information (username, pass, url) you should be able to do it.