Voosh Themes

Understanding How Wordpress Works

This is the second part of a A Beginner’s Guide To Wordpress – the first part covered what makes Wordpress so great and why you might want to consider it for your own projects.

In this post I’ll be providing an overview of how Wordpress works – in particular, I’ll focus on the core files you get when you download Wordpress, the Wordpress database, and the Wordpress front and backend.

Wordpress Core Files

When you download the latest version of Wordpress at www.wordpress.org you are downloading the core Wordpress source code. If you take a look at the file structure of the package you download you’ll notice that it contains lots of folders, sub-folders, and files (often with a “wp-” prefix).

These core files are what make Wordpress tick and in most cases you don’t need to worry about the vast majority of them. However, there are some folders and files that you will use on a consistent basis – especially if you are interested in developing your own Wordpress themes, or if you want to alter a theme that you’ve downloaded.

You don’t need to worry about these files too much right now, other than to be aware that they exist – I’ll explain in later parts of this guide the key files that you’ll be accessing and using on a regular basis.

The Wordpress Folder and File Structure

The Wordpress Database

For Wordpress to be able to work, you will need to setup and configure a MySQL database that will store all of your site’s content (i.e. your blog posts, pages, settings, and plugin configurations). This is because the core files that you download don’t actually store the contents of your site – they just make Wordpress work and provide the functions necessary to access content from your database and display it appropriately.

As you can imagine, this means the database is very important – if you were to lose your database then you would essentially be losing your whole site. However, if your sever crashed and you lost everything, but you still had a backup of your database, you could get up and running again very quickly (you can learn how to perform a Wordpress backup here). You would simply reinstall Wordpress, find a suitable theme and activate it, and then restore your database. And that’s it – you’re be up and running again.

So the key message here is – look after your database! It’s probably the most important part of your Wordpress site and you want to ensure that you make regular backups and keep them in a secure location.

The Wordpress Backend

The Wordpress backend (often referred to as the Admin area/panel/dashboard) is the part of Wordpress that only you have access to (and maybe your co-authors – if you have any). You can access the Admin panel through your browser – it’s located at www.YourWebsiteName.com/wp-admin. When you access this page you’ll be presented with a login screen – enter your login credentials and you’ll then find yourself in the Admin area. Here you can create new content and manage all aspects of your site. It’s generally quite intutive and fairly straightforward to use – have a look around and get a feel for where everything is located. You’ll be spending a lot of time in here!

The Wordpress Admin Area/Panel/Dashboard

The Wordpress Frontend

The frontend of your Wordpress site is essentially the public website that everyone can see. It displays all of your posts, pages, archives, images, videos, and anything else that you have set up. The general process for adding new content to your site and displaying it on your site’s frontend is very simple – firstly you create and publish some content via the Admin area. The Wordpress core files then access your database to collect the content you’ve created so that it can displayed. The frontend then brings everything together and displays your content according to the template that you have chosen for your site.

The homepage at www.vooshthemes.com is an example of a Wordpress Frontend

Conclusion

You should now have a general sense of the way in which Wordpress is structured and how it works. It’s quite simply really – you have the backend where you create all your content – the database which stores all of your content and settings – and the frontend where everything is nicely displayed for your readers. In part 3 I’ll focus on the main tools and software that you’ll need to get your Wordpress site and running in no time at all!

Table Of Contents

1. What Makes Wordpress So Great?
2. Understanding How Wordpress Works
3. Five Essential Things You Need For Building A Wordpress Blog
4. How To Complete A Fresh Wordpress Install
5. Wordpress Posts, Pages, And Other Concepts
6. Seven Points To Consider When Choosing A New Wordpress Theme
7. Ten Free Wordpress Plugins That You Should Install