How to build a bespoke website driven by WordPress

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My questions about WordPress

From what I can gather, WordPress is fast becoming the norm for building content managed websites. Up until now, I have used my own CMS systems to allow my clients to manage their sites content etc. However, I was recently asked to build a WordPress driven website, and as the client insisted on using WordPress, I subsequently lost the contract…

Resultantly, I am very keen to learn how to build and program a WordPress site from scratch. I am not interested in templates provided when you install WordPress on your server, I am only interested in building a fully bespoke website, with the ability to update the content using the WordPress management engine.

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I therefore have the following questions with regards to how WordPress works (I am completely new to this).

  1. Can I build a completely bespoke designed website and have WordPress manage the content?
  2. Are there any limitations to using WordPress to manage the content?
  3. Can I specify which content is editable?
  4. Are there any ‘from the ground up’ tutorials on starting to build bespoke WordPress driven websites?
  5. Where can I find the documentation for the WordPress API (if there is one)?
  6. Do I install WordPress in the same way that I would if I was using the built in template engine? In other words, do I still install WordPress as a package in Plesk for the particular domain?
  7. Does the code have to be in a specific format, or structure?

I effectively would like to find (or be pointed to) an article that clearly explains how WordPress works and how advanced web developers can make the most of it.

I appreciate that this question is not really related to programming, if it needs to be moved then please advise as to where I can re-post it.

My Research

I appreciate that the answers to these questions will be located somewhere on the web, but thus far, I have been unable to find any really helpful tutorials on this specific topic.

I have read through pages such as the following, and whilst they were helpful, they do not really explain ‘in brief’ what WordPress is and how it can be manipulated:

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2 comments

  1. I below is my answer.

    1. Can I build a completely bespoke designed website and have WordPress manage the content?

      Yes you can. Here you can find some sites that are built on wordpress. You can get an idea of what kind of stuff can be done.

      http://designwoop.com/2011/12/best-wordpress-themes-of-the-year-2011/

      http://www.tripwiremagazine.com/2012/07/wordpress-websites-examples.html

    2. Are there any limitations to using WordPress to manage the content?

      According to my experience building wordpress websites, plugins and widgets, I would say you will rarely come across where you want to do something and you can’t. If you know well enough php and understand OOP you can basically build whatever you want. In fact there are so many plugins that most of the time you could even get away with not writing anything (in your case this is irrelevant as you want to learn).

    3. Can I specify which content is editable?

      Yes. Other wise there is no point of using any CMS. I am sure this would be the most basic feature of any CMS out there.

    4. Are there any ‘from the ground up’ tutorials on starting to build bespoke WordPress driven websites?

      Here are few tutorials you can start with.

      nettuts

      css-tricks

      wptuts

      And of course the best way to learn is the starter theme that comes as default with wordpress installation. You can find more themes here.

    5. Where can I find the documentation for the WordPress API (if there
      is one)?

      The wordpress documentation is quite detailed covers most of the things. While learning or even further this will be your best resource. I usually tend to read the code itself if I want to know how the function works and other details which of course documentation won’t cover.

    6. Do I install WordPress in the same way that I would if I was using
      the built in template engine? In other words, do I still install
      Wordpress as a package in Plesk for the particular domain?

      Installing wordpress is as simple as copying it to your server and accessing it via the browser. You will get on screen step by step instruction. It could not be easier than that. And if somehow you got stuck, there are hundreds of tutorial online or you can visit the wordpress codex site.

    7. Does the code have to be in a specific format, or structure?

      Of course you would be following the wordpress coding style (not necessary for but recommended for sake of being consistent). Depending on your skill level you will fairly pick up the standards.

      If you are building plugins or widgets, which I assume if you want to build sophisticated websites, you must follow the coding standards.

  2. By the sounds of it, you need to learn about writing a theme from scratch. A WordPress theme gives you absolute control over the HTML that’s outputted by the engine. You can therefore customise your site to look however you want it to look. My company website, tec20, was designed this way without any themes used from wordpress.com. Obviously the themes are aimed at writing blog sites, but you don’t have to include any of the commenting hooks, for example.

    These tutorials may help:

    http://rockablethemes.com/wordpress-themes-tutorials/