Beginning WordPress 3: Table of Contents

Beginning WordPress 3 is outdated! You should get the new edition instead: WordPress for Web Developers. (It’s the same book, only updated; we changed the title to make its intended audience clearer.)

1. Introduction
   • Blogging vs. content management
   • Why WP?
   • WP’s CMS capabilities
   • Major sites using WP
2. Installation
   • Requirements
3. Settings
   • Reading settings
   • Discussion: comments and trackbacks
   • Permalinks
     • Category base
     • Short URLs
4. Working with content (Download as a PDF)
   • Posts
     • Content
       • Working with content from Office files
       • Shortcodes
     • Permalinks
     • Publish Settings
     • Categories
     • Tags
     • Featured Images
     • Excerpts
     • Comments and Trackbacks
     • Custom Fields
   • Pages
     • Page Attributes: Template, Parent, Menu Order
   • Posts vs. Pages: Same But Different
     • Posts are Pages; Pages are Posts
     • Editing Posts and Pages
       • Quick Edit
       • Bulk Edit
       • Screen options
   • Media
     • Images and Galleries
     • Video
     • Audio
     • Other File Types
   • Links
   • Feeds
     • Unlisted feeds
5. Importing content
   • From blogs
     • Blogger
     • WordPress
   • From Joomla
   • From Other MySQL Sites
     • Drupal
   • From static files
6. Creating a basic theme
   • Using widgets
   • Using menus
     • Creating a menu
     • Editing menu items
     • Creating multiple menus
     • Using header and background images
   • Turning HTML into a WP Theme
     • Body and post classes
     • The Loop
   • Template tags
   • Theme file hierarchy
   • Listing comments
   • Including additional files
   • Styling content
   • Changing appearance based on context
     • Conditional tags
     • body and post classes
     • posts vs. pages
     • Archives: date, category, author
     • Search results
   • Creating navigation menus
     • Custom navigation tag
     • Page lists and page menus
     • Category lists
   • Theme functions
     • Setting up widgets
     • Enabling menus
     • Enabling featured images (post thumbnails)
     • Enabling custom background images
     • Enabling shortcodes in text widgets
     • Changing excerpt length and ellipsis
   • Child themes
     • Child theme file hierarchy
   • Troubleshooting themes
7. Creating an advanced theme
   • Modifying the Loop
     • Excluding a category from the home page
     • Showing only one category on the home page
     • Showing most recent pages instead of posts
     • Looping through all children of a page
     • Listing attached files
   • Multiple Loops
     • Resetting the query
     • A Loop for each category
     • Showing the author’s other recent posts
   • Accessing post information outside the Loop
   • SEO
     • Improving the title tag
     • Using categories and tags as keywords
     • Using the excerpt as a description
     • Shortlinks and canonical URLs
   • Adding scripts and stylesheets
     • Using JavaScript libraries
     • Adding your own scripts
     • Conditionally adding scripts
     • Adding stylesheets
   • Outside the theme hierarchy: database errors and maintenance messages
   • Theme options
     • Adding an options page
     • Registering options
     • Creating an options form
     • Adding a stylesheet to the options page
   • Theme frameworks
   • Theme frameworks
   • Distributing themes
     • Theme checklist
8. Creating widgets
   • Basic widgets
   • Dashboard widgets
     • Configuration screens
9. Creating plugins
   • Creating a template tag
   • Adding an options page
   • Setting defaults and updating options with the settings API
   • Plugin possibilities
     • Creating a shortcode
     • Checking for capabilities
   • Hooks: filters and actions
     • Actions
     • Filters
   • Variations on option pages
     • Adding other submenus
     • Adding a top-level menu item
     • Adding a section to an existing option page
   • Publishing a plugin
     • Readme files and screenshots
     • Subversion (SVN)
     • Localization and internationalization
10. Working with users
    • Profiles
      • Extending profiles
    • Roles
      • Changing capabilities
      • Creating roles
      • Removing roles
      • Managing roles with plugins
    • Workflow
      • Notifications
      • Moderation
      • Improving workflow with plugins
11. Performance and Security
    • Caching
      • Setting up WP Super Cache
    • Permalinks and performance
    • Tracking down performance problems
    • Securing logins
      • Login Lockdown
      • SSL
    • Removing the meta generator tag
    • File permissions
      • Securing .htaccess and wp-config.php
    • Changing file locations
      • Moving wp-config.php
      • Giving WordPress its own subdirectory
      • Moving wp-content
    • Database security
      • Changing the table prefix
      • Backing up the database and files
    • Monitoring security problems
12. Custom content types, taxonomies, and fields
    • Creating taxonomies
      • Non-hierarchical (like tags)
      • Hierarchical (like categories)
      • Using custom taxonomies
    • Custom content types
      • non-hierarchical (like posts)
      • hierarchical (like pages)
      • Custom taxonomies for custom content types
      • Including custom content types in the Loop
      • Feeds for custom content types
    • Custom fields
      • Creating the custom fields
      • Verifying and saving user input
13. The Network
    • Requirements
      • Subdomains
      • Subfolders
    • Activating the network
    • Configuring the network
    • Network users
      • Splogs
    • Network plugins and themes
      • Plugin and theme options
    • Upgrading the network
    • Mapping domains
    • BuddyPress
14. Appendix: Plugin index
15. Appendix: Theme functions
16. Appendix: Plugin recipes

See also: Updates and Errata