Avoiding Glitches in Advance

  • robertmcel

    (@robertmcel)


    17 years, 1 month ago

    I have a website on a Windows 2003 enterprise server. The site is built with MS FrontPage 2002 (Yes, I know, but it has met my needs for five years) The host (Startlogic) offers WordPress and what looks like an easy process of installing WordPress on the server. (It has an ‘install now’ button and some basic support. Looks simple.) The blog would be installed in the public folder and links to the website and the blog will be on the index.htm.

    Before I begin the installation I thought I’d ask some questions, pretty basic I would guess, to try to head off any problems before they happen or at least understand them when they do. I’ve read through the WordPress tutorials. My server has PHP and MySQL installed. I have up to three databases available as part of my account.

    1. Are there any problems inherent to installing WordPress with MS FrontPage and / or on a windows server that I am likely to run into

    2. I can’t afford to have my site go down. What are the odds of the WordPress installation making my website inaccessible for some reason? You know, some strange glitch that confuses the easily confused MS FrontPage scripts.

    3. I know what databases are and what can be done with them such as querying them for aggregate data reports (Don’t know how to do it, though). Does installing WordPress automatically create a database and what is it used for i.e. storing registered users information? Storing archived blogs? does WordPress allow me to set up customized queries without going back to college?

    4. I want the users to register and create a profile. Is that automatically part of WordPress and done in the installation process?

    5. I will also want to have registered users expand on their profile to include required data so they can participate in polls. I will require name, address, zip code, political party, age, gender and email. Is this possible with the basic WordPress to add categories of information from them or do I have to upload something to WordPress?
    And all that goes into a database?

    7. I would like for registered users to be able to comment on a blog but I also want them to be able to participate in a poll on some blogs using three radio buttons for ‘yes’, ‘no’, and ‘other’. Can that be done? How would that be done?

    8. I want those poll answers to be associated with the user’s profile and then draw reports from all who participated. The reports might look like 50 people polled ‘yes’; of that 50 people 27 were females between the ages of…., 13 live in zip code…., and so on. Can that be done? How would that be done?

    9. Google Adsense. Is installing those things automatically done by Google or do I have to install script or cut and paste them in place?

    10. I noticed on the WordPress templates that there is a lot of stuff such as radio buttons and things sort of hanging around. Not sure what they are for. If I don’t need them how do I get rid of them and can I move them around on the page?

    I’d be grateful for any help and particularly for anyone with excellent database skills and some free time to wade through this with me.

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)
  • MichaelH

    (@michaelh)

    17 years, 1 month ago

    The blog would be installed in the public folder and links to the website and the blog will be on the index.htm.

    WordPress ‘runs’ from an index.php (see 2 below)

    1. If your host meets WordPress requirements you should be okay.

    2. Put WordPress in a sub-folder of your web-root, e.g. blog. The access it as yourdomain.com/blog. Also consider installing on your local machine to try it out (Installing WordPress has a section on this).

    3. You need to create a MySQL database and database user as describe in Installing WordPress. Of course, Startlogic may have their own install routine that I can’t speak to.

    4. Yes. Users can register and then edit their own profile. See Administration > Users > Your Profile

    5. You’ll want to look at a plugin, maybe Cimy User Extra Fields http://ww.wp.xz.cn/extend/plugins/cimy-user-extra-fields/

    7. Look at some of the poll type plugins at http://ww.wp.xz.cn/extend/plugins/tags/poll

    8. Not sure so see #7

    9. You install. See http://ww.wp.xz.cn/extend/plugins/tags/adsense

    10. You will want to find a theme that meets your requirements at http://ww.wp.xz.cn/extend/themes/ If you are going to be modifying your theme then you will want to do some reading at Codex. Start with WordPress Semantics, Stepping Into Template Tags, Stepping Into Templates, Template Hierarchy, Text Editors

    Thread Starter robertmcel

    (@robertmcel)

    17 years, 1 month ago

    Thanks MichaelH. I’m off to a good start.

    Thread Starter robertmcel

    (@robertmcel)

    17 years, 1 month ago

    This is all very helpful but, as would be expected, leads to more questions.

    I visited Cimy and that would seem to allow for expanding the registration fields. Two questions on that:

    1. Cimy writes “WordPress: just copy whole cimy-user-extra-fields subdir into your plug-in directory and activate it”.

    What, actually would I be doing here? ‘Copy’ to me means ‘select all’ ‘copy’ and ‘paste’ usually to a blank MS Word or MS Front Page page. Is that what he is telling me to do? Do I have to first create a page or file to copy to?

    2. You responded above, “You need to create a MySQL database and database user as describe in Installing WordPress. Of course, Startlogic may have their own install routine that I can’t speak to.”

    Apparently I need only one database for WordPress. What goes into that db?
    Because I want to eventually query data on registered users would I be better off creating a seperate db for that data?

    MichaelH

    (@michaelh)

    17 years ago

    1. Managing_Plugins explains the plugin installation process.
    2. You create a database and a database user. You tell WordPress, via wp-config.php, what that database and user is…WordPress will then create the necessary tables, include the user table, during the installation process. Database Description describes the tables. wpdb describes accessing tables, though there are many other functions available to access data (see Template Tags and Function_Reference).

    Thread Starter robertmcel

    (@robertmcel)

    17 years ago

    OK Michael. I have quite a bit to digest and I thank you for the help and will take your advice and install WP on my machine to practice with.

    Just two more quick questions:

    1. If I activate Cimy’s plugin to get more fields for user information, does the plugin automatically create the necessary fields in the WordPress database or do I have to create them?

    and

    If I have further questions should I activate this exchange or start a new post?

    thanks again for your help.

    whooami

    (@whooami)

    17 years ago

    plugins install any tables they need.

    new thread.

    see the sticky posts ->
    http://ww.wp.xz.cn/support/view/all-topics

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)

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