WP book for newbie

[al_m473]

I am looking at

1) Rockstar WP Designer
2) Digging into WP
3) other

Is there anyone out there who has read both books and can tell me which might be best for the newcomer to WP? Or is there a better book out there for me as a relative newcomer to WP?

please advise

Al

[TheDoc]

While a little biased due to our own Chris Coyier having written it, I really do think Digging into WP is a fantastic book. It is a super handy resource for somebody who already knows their way around WP, and it’s a great starter’s manual too.

[al_m473]

thanks for the reply ‘TheDoc’ and I see that you are a fellow Canadian, I am in St Thomas, ON and I am glad that I chanced upon css-tricks a few years ago, I really like what Chris shows us and have learned quite a bit by just following this site. I don’t understand everything he talks about but I enjoy the site and his videos a lot.

perhaps for this reason and the fact that I like to support what I like, I will get Chris’ book first and then perhaps buy the Envato book later as well. I see that Sitepoint is also coming out with a WP book. I am just getting into WP, downloaded it for the first time on the 31st of July and set up a test WP site, hosting courtesy of webqth.com.

My web site address is http://ve3gam.webth.com/, lots of bumps along the way but I will be adding to the web site as frequently as I can.

Al

[TheDoc]

I really like Envato as a company, and I check out their sites often. What I don’t like is their overuse of "Rockstar", "Ninja", etc. So "Rockstar WP Designer" annoys me and, in my humble opinion, decreases the attractiveness (and reputation) of the book.

Sitepoint, on the other hand, is a company that I do not like one bit. I can’t remember what they did to get in my bad books, it has been a while now, but I’ve always felt them to be a little… sleezy. I can’t quite put my finger on it. I feel like they make you feel like they’re giving you new information, but they aren’t actually teaching you anything.

People always have lots of questions when it comes to WordPress, so don’t hesitate to ask any questions in the CMS section.

If you are designing and coding a WordPress site from scratch, here are the steps that I take:

1. Site Architecture
2. Wireframes
3. Design
4. HTML
5. WordPress

I think the key step there, that a lot of people starting out with WordPress skip, is #4. It’s so much easier to build the templates in pure HTML & CSS before converting it into a WordPress theme. I’m not saying build the whole site in HTML, just the templates (you’ll learn about all of the different templates needed for a theme).

[edit]Oh, and I’m on the other side – Victoria, BC![/edit]

[Author]

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