David Mankellow

WP login

I’m fortunate enough to have some moderate web development skills. Before the site that you are reading this from I coded my site from start to finish, mainly for the experience of setting up a site from start to finish, buying a domain to launching a site. Once this was complete I soon found that I didn’t have the time to make full use of the site. In addition to this my PHP skills aren’t as good as i’d like in order to make the site more dynamic. For me it was a simple decision to set up a WordPress site.

I have been asked a number of times recently about how to set up a WordPress site from birth to launch. This is what has prompted me to write this article.

Initially, I think it’s very important to test WordPress out and ensure that it is for you without spending money on a domain and host. In order to do this I would advise installing WordPress locally. In order to do this, take the following steps:-

1. Install WAMP (MAMP for Mac users) on your machine. This sets up a server locally. This is important so that the filesystem is the same as on a web server. Additionally, this is important to have mySQL and myPHP installed in order to run the PHP powered WordPress. Ensure that this is running
2. Once you’re happy that WAMP is fully installed, download the latest WordPress files from here. Place them in the root of the wamp/www folder.
3. Now you need to create a database locally. Left click on the WAMP logo that is in the system tray and then select phpMyAdmin. When this page loads up simply enter a sensible name for the database, for example “wordpress”. Then select “Create”.
4. Using your favourite text editor (I use NOTEPAD++), open the wp-sample-config.php file from inside the C:wampwwwwordpress folder. Edit the file as displayed below and save the file as wp-config.php. (Note – DB_NAME is the name you gave your database, so change accordingly if you called it something different)
   

   An example of how the code should look

5. Your blog should be ready to go locally. Now, in your browser open http://localhost/wordpress/install.php and follow the on-screen instructions. From then on, when you want to log into your local blog simply navigate to http://localhost/wordpress/wp-admin and the log-in screen will display.

At this point I feel it’s important for you to explore WordPress and find out all of the areas of functionality for yourself! Look out for part 2 where I’ll be explaining how to set-up a live version on your web server!