a brief introduction to wordpress for sas programmers · 2016-09-23 · 1 a brief introduction to...

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1 A Brief Introduction to WordPress for SAS ® Programmers Andra Northup, Advanced Analytic Designs, Inc., Davis, California ABSTRACT WordPress is a free and open-source content management system (CMS) based on PHP and MySQL. Features include a plugin architecture and a template system. WordPress is used by more than 26.4% of the top 10 million websites as of April 2016. In fact, SAS® blogs (hosted at http://blogs.sas.com) use the WordPress platform. If you are considering starting a blog to share your love of SAS® or to raise the profile of your business and are considering using WordPress, join us for a brief introduction to WordPress for SAS® programmers. INTRODUCTION A content management system (CMS) is software to create, edit, review and publish digital content. Many content management systems offer a Web-based GUI, enabling publishers to access the CMS online using only a Web browser. In addition to a WYSIWYG editor, most provide file uploading, image resizing, page categories and tags, user accounts (editor, moderator, administrator), and more. Tools to index and search documents and to specify keywords and other metadata for search engine crawlers are also widely available. The ultimate benefit of utilizing a content management system is the ability to create and publish web pages with little or no knowledge of web design, HTML, or CSS Why Choose WordPress The universe of content management systems is constantly expanding and includes other well-known options such as Joomla and Drupal. The ultimate decision is personal based on assessment of the options in light of your goals. WordPress does offer many reasons to choose it. It is free, open source software, used for sites ranging from small blogs to enterprise level sites. There are many professionally designed themes available, including over two thousand free themes in the official WordPress Theme Directory. Also, many themes are designed to be responsive, i.e., mobile device friendly. There are also myriad plugins (both free and paid) that can expand functionality, and provide different styles of layouts. And, of course, there is the huge, active WordPress community, including not only the online community but also many local user and meetup groups. The dynamic WordPress community shares information with one another for the advancement of the platform, which is a big reason WordPress has a larger market share than Drupal or Joomla First Things If you have not already done so, select and purchase your domain name: the ‘you’ in you.com. Consider the words or phrases that best describe the business or activity for which you are creating a site. A growing variety of domain extensions are available. “.com”, “.net”, and “.biz” are among the most widely recognized. The country code “.us” is a relatively new extension. More extensions are added all the time, but you may want to stick to one of the better known. When you build a website and want other people to see it, you will need to publish, i.e. upload, it with a web hosting service that stores your website files in web servers connected to a fast network. When someone types in your web address, the Internet connects to the web server holding your website files and then transfers your website information back to their computer. From there they can surf and view the pages of your website. You can think of your web hosting as the “office space” you rent for your website. Without hosting services, you don't have a place for your files to reside, so your domain would be like a disconnected phone number in the phone directory, and your site files would have nowhere to stay. INSTALLING WORDPRESS Your host will use cPanel, a Linux-based web hosting control panel, to provide a graphical interface and tools. From the cPanel for your domain, install WordPress. Many hosts use the Softaculous Apps Installer. Simply find Softaculous in your cPanel, and select WordPress.

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Page 1: A Brief Introduction to WordPress for SAS Programmers · 2016-09-23 · 1 A Brief Introduction to WordPress for SAS® Programmers Andra Northup, Advanced Analytic Designs, Inc., Davis,

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A Brief Introduction to WordPress for SAS® Programmers

Andra Northup, Advanced Analytic Designs, Inc., Davis, California

ABSTRACT

WordPress is a free and open-source content management system (CMS) based on PHP and MySQL. Features include a plugin architecture and a template system. WordPress is used by more than 26.4% of the top 10 million websites as of April 2016. In fact, SAS® blogs (hosted at http://blogs.sas.com) use the WordPress platform. If you are considering starting a blog to share your love of SAS® or to raise the profile of your business and are considering using WordPress, join us for a brief introduction to WordPress for SAS® programmers.

INTRODUCTION

A content management system (CMS) is software to create, edit, review and publish digital content. Many content management systems offer a Web-based GUI, enabling publishers to access the CMS online using only a Web browser. In addition to a WYSIWYG editor, most provide file uploading, image resizing, page categories and tags, user accounts (editor, moderator, administrator), and more. Tools to index and search documents and to specify keywords and other metadata for search engine crawlers are also widely available. The ultimate benefit of utilizing a content management system is the ability to create and publish web pages with little or no knowledge of web design, HTML, or CSS

Why Choose WordPress

The universe of content management systems is constantly expanding and includes other well-known options such as Joomla and Drupal. The ultimate decision is personal based on assessment of the options in light of your goals. WordPress does offer many reasons to choose it. It is free, open source software, used for sites ranging from small blogs to enterprise level sites. There are many professionally designed themes available, including over two thousand free themes in the official WordPress Theme Directory. Also, many themes are designed to be responsive, i.e., mobile device friendly. There are also myriad plugins (both free and paid) that can expand functionality, and provide different styles of layouts. And, of course, there is the huge, active WordPress community, including not only the online community but also many local user and meetup groups. The dynamic WordPress community shares information with one another for the advancement of the platform, which is a big reason WordPress has a larger market share than Drupal or Joomla

First Things

If you have not already done so, select and purchase your domain name: the ‘you’ in you.com. Consider the words or phrases that best describe the business or activity for which you are creating a site. A growing variety of domain extensions are available. “.com”, “.net”, and “.biz” are among the most widely recognized. The country code “.us” is a relatively new extension. More extensions are added all the time, but you may want to stick to one of the better known.

When you build a website and want other people to see it, you will need to publish, i.e. upload, it with a web hosting service that stores your website files in web servers connected to a fast network. When someone types in your web address, the Internet connects to the web server holding your website files and then transfers your website information back to their computer. From there they can surf and view the pages of your website. You can think of your web hosting as the “office space” you rent for your website. Without hosting services, you don't have a place for your files to reside, so your domain would be like a disconnected phone number in the phone directory, and your site files would have nowhere to stay.

INSTALLING WORDPRESS

Your host will use cPanel, a Linux-based web hosting control panel, to provide a graphical interface and tools. From the cPanel for your domain, install WordPress. Many hosts use the Softaculous Apps Installer. Simply find Softaculous in your cPanel, and select WordPress.

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Display 1. WordPress script on Softaculous Installer

Softaculous opens in the Overview tab giving a brief description of WordPress. You can explore features, screenshots, ratings and reviews from the Softaculous installer.

Display 2. View when WordPress selected

When you move to the Install area, you see the page shown in Display 3 below. You fill in your domain name, site name, site description and admin details. You have the option to select the plugin to limit login attempts, a good security feature.

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Display 3. Installation specifications

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Caveat: You can leave the Admin Password as the default of pass. If you do, though, change it as soon as you can.

Advanced installation options are also available, such as automated backups and auto upgrade of WordPress, plugins and/or themes.

Display 4. Advanced Installation Options

Following the advanced options is the opportunity to select the theme to be installed. At the very bottom, you can enter an email address to which installation details will be sent.

Display 5. A theme can be selected for installation

You are notified of the successful installation, and have the opportunity to tweet about your new site.

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Display 6. Successful installation

Below is an example of the installation details emailed to you.

Display 7. Installation details sent in email

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FINALLY THE CONTENT

Display 8. First view of new site

You can click on the URL in the installation email, and see you’re your site for the first time! Now you’ll want to do some customization. Go to the Admin URL provided in your installation email.

When you login to your Admin site, you see the dashboard for your WordPress site.

Display 9. Login in to WP administration

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Display 10. WordPress site dashboard

You can begin customizing your site by navigating to Appearance/Customize. There are many options for customizing your site, including choices in use of colors, header image and background image. Also, you can create menus and select widgets to use.

Display 11. Customizing your site

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Looking at site Identity, you can modify the Site Title and Tagline (site description) you specified during installation. Here I decide I want to keep my site title ‘I love SAS !!’. However, I change my tagline from ‘My WordPress Blog’ to ‘My SAS Adventures’. I also upload an image to use as a site icon.

Display 12. Customizing your Site Identity

Another administrative task is adding/updating users. To modify the attributes of a user, hover over the name of the user you want to update – here admin – and click ‘edit’.

Display 13. Adding or updating users

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On the account management page is the opportunity to generate, or specify, a new user password.

Display 14. Update user password

You probably will not want your blog posts attributed to ‘admin’, and so will want to add a user specifically for blogging purposes.

Display 15. Add a user

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Display 16. After a second user has been added

After adding/updating users, you may want to add another page to your site. Typically sites include an About page. Select Pages/Add new from the menu.

Display 17. Adding an About page

Here is you see your site with the additional page, and the customization added earlier.

Display 18. The About page has been added

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Display 19. Site with customization done to this point

Now you are ready to start adding blog posts!

CONCLUSION

WordPress is an easy and fun way to publish your thoughts and opinions on the web. Without knowing web design, html or css, you can get a professional looking site up with a minimum of time. You also have the flexibility to update its look easily through the use of themes and plugins. Raise your profile by making regular posts on your site a part of your branding and social media campaign.

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REFERENCES

Hemedinger, C. (2015). “How SAS® Uses SAS to Analyze SAS Blogs” Proceedings of the SAS Global Forum 2015 Conference. Cary, NC: SAS Institute Inc. Available at http://support.sas.com/resources/papers/proceedings15/SAS1708-2015.pdf.

Beal, Vangie. “Content Management System”. Webopedia. Available at http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/C/content_management_system.html.

“What separates a content management system from just a bunch of web pages?”. Stackoverflow. 2010. Available at http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4317079/what-separates-a-content-management-system-from-just-a-bunch-of-web-pages.

Balkhi, Syed. “What is: Content Management System (CMS)”. Wpbeginner. Available at http://www.wpbeginner.com/glossary/content-management-system-cms/.

“Content Management”. DMOZ. Available at https://www.dmoz.org/Computers/Software/Internet/Site_Management/Content_Management/.

“WordPress.com and WordPress.org”. WordPress.com. Available at https://en.support.wordpress.com/com-vs-org/.

“Wordpress.org where to start?” Stackoverflow. 2011. Available at http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7855362/wordpress-org-where-to-start.

Locke, John. “Why Does Web Hosting Matter?”. Lockedown Design. 2015. Available at https://www.lockedowndesign.com/why-does-web-hosting-matter/.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Many thanks to John Locke of Lockedown Design, Susan Slaughter and Mary Northup for their feedback and support in the writing of this paper.

RECOMMENDED READING

Locke, John. “How Long Does It Take To Make A Custom WordPress Theme?”. Lockedown Design. 2015. Available at https://www.lockedowndesign.com/how-long-to-make-a-custom-wordpress-theme/.

Locke, John. “What WordPress Plugins Do You Use For Every Website?”. Lockedown Design. 2015. Available at https://www.lockedowndesign.com/what-plugins-do-you-use-for-wordpress-websites/.

Locke, John. “Should You Have Comments On Your Blog?”. Lockedown Design. 2016. Available at https://www.lockedowndesign.com/should-you-have-comments-on-your-blog/.

CONTACT INFORMATION

Your comments and questions are valued and encouraged. Contact the author at:

Andra Northup Advanced Analytic Designs, Inc. P.O. Box 72892 Davis, CA 95617 530.400.0554 [email protected] www.advancedanalyticdesigns.com

SAS and all other SAS Institute Inc. product or service names are registered trademarks or trademarks of SAS Institute Inc. in the USA and other countries. ® indicates USA registration.

Other brand and product names are trademarks of their respective companies.