A great way to play with wordpress for your coursework and for building WordPress sites is to install
a server on your local computer and use it directly in a previous video.
I introduced several free options that make it easy to install WordPress locally in this video.
You'll use the free program called Map to install a local server on your computer and create a local
environment for web site development.
Then you'll learn how to install WordPress manually because everyone's computer is different.
Setting up a server on yours may require a slightly different setup by going through the manual install
process.
You'll learn about how WordPress works between its file structure and connection to a database which
is an invaluable skill for a WordPress expert.
Let's get started.
Let's start by opening your browser and navigating to map dot info.
You'll see the map home page and a free download button or downloads at the top right.
If you open that free download button it will ask you whether you want to download the Apple Mac version
or the Windows version just click the appropriate version for you and click save file.
Then once you've saved that file you can move it or leave it in your Downloads folder and double click
the file to install it like you would any other program.
When I opened map it starts the servers automatically.
And so you should see either a start servers or stop servers button here at the right and if the two
green boxes are lit under Apache server and my sequel server then map is running and ready to go.
If not click the Start server's button here on the right and wait for both boxes to be lit.
Next click Open start page in the map control panel that should open a new tab in your browser with
the address localhost and something after.
Now if it's plain localhost then map is using the standard port 80 for the Apache port and it doesn't
need a reference to the port number in the address here.
Now you may see an address that looks like localhost Colin and a four digit number.
If that's the case then your computer has defined a different port for the Apache port.
So that map will work.
Often programs are already using port 80 which is the standard port and programs.
For example like Skype will sometimes do that.
Mine is using port 80 so my address is localhost slash map for the start page.
Now within the start page we also have a reference to another port number down here under my sequel.
That is the database port and in my case it's 33 0 6.
Open map now and edit at the left side click the preferences button and you have a number of tabs across
the top.
If you click Portes you'll see which Apache port and my secret port that map is using.
In your case will address and use these port numbers when we're setting up to install WordPress.
Now that we have a working server environment proven by the fact that we can navigate to a local host
address like the map start page let's now open a new tab and open Word Press dot o r g.
Now this is the self-hosted version of Wordpress that we can download from this get word press button
and then download the latest version.
I'm going to save that on my computer.
It will be in my downloads folder and then I'll have you do the same thing and will unzip it and take
a look at the files in the file explorer for Windows or using a Mac in the Finder.
I'm going to create a folder inside my wordpress folder on my computer and I'll just call that WordPress
4 9 8.
Just a place to keep this version of Wordpress and I want to drag the download zip file right into that
folder.
Now it's on my computer and in Windows I can right click and click extract all to unzip or uncompress
that zip file in.
If you're on a Mac use the Finder to just double click it and you can unzip that zip file.
Now depending on how your computer unzip that compressed file inside of the folder it created there
maybe another folder called WordPress.
Now inside of that folder we're trying to get to the root core files for the Wordpress software and
that's about 19 folders and files that look just like this.
These are the Word Press Corps files that I want to place in my server area.
That map has created for me now on your regular hard drive.
In my case it's Seacole And basically the same location on Windows or a Mac.
There should be a folder called Map now on Emacs sometimes it's in the applications folder.
You can open up the map folder and inside there there are a number of configuration files and folders
in the main folder that houses your files is called H T dox.
So I'll double click H.T. docs and in my installation I already have a few site folders created but
what you should do is create a new folder inside of HD docs and label it for your next site.
Them leave reminder of course to just so I can keep track of it open up that folder and then I'm going
to select all of the word press corps files that I just downloaded and I'm going to copy them directly
into that folder.
I copied them because I want to maintain the original folders I downloaded inside of my wordpress files
and I could use them in other places as well.
Now that I have my word press corps files inside the HD docs and my site folder I just need to configure
the database using the map tools WordPress works.
We're going to create a W.P. dash config file from this sample file that's provided in the core files
and we're going to place the database credentials in that file first.
Let's open up map and go to the start page again in our browser window down and click THP my admin.
That is a database manager that will open in a tab in your browser and show you what databases are already
in your map installation.
If you're just starting out you may not have any which you can do is click the new button at the top
left or if you're under the databases tab there's a create database fields right here at the top.
So I'm going to name my database the same name as my site folder and I'm just going to add a dash D-B
onto the database name if I hit create that will create a database.
And you could see it a message there's no tables found in the database.
It's basically an empty database and we're going to allow the Wordpress software to fill it up with
tables and rows.
Now there's one thing to take note of here and that is what port number is the My sequel or database
port in your map installation.
In my case it's 33 06 as I can see here at the top.
Now on your map start page it already it also shows you that port number here under the My sequel heading
on the start page and another place you can find it is in map under Preferences under the ports tab
here the bicycle database is 33 06.
In my case you'll just need to remember that in order to put the correct database credentials in the
WP config file in your Wordpress files or the database credentials can be seen here with map.
The host is always local host and it may reference the port number right here.
And then the user and the password or both route you would never use a route for a username and password
on a live site.
But because it's a local installation it doesn't have public access.
The next thing to do is to either rename or make a copy of the W.P. config dash sample file that you
copied over into your site folder in maps H.T. docs.
What I'm going to do is just click twice in the file name and just delete the dash sample rendering
this file the correct file name W.P. dash config dot ph.
Now I'm going to open that within my code or text editor.
In my case it's Adam and it's open the file which has a bit of code necessary for Wordpress to work.
And this is the file that tells WordPress where to look for the database so that it can enter and control
all the content and information that the Wordpress website will use.
So you can see here a little bit down from the top.
There's four different fields to fill in.
So we know the database name we have chosen doesn't matter what it is it just has to be the correct
name when you chose and created that database in ph PMI admin and the username as we just reviewed is
route for map and the password is always root for map as well as the D-B host.
Now here's an example where in my case I remember the local host is in port 33 06.
So I need to change this from a standard local host to local host Colin 3 3 0 6.
Now I can just click File Save or control s to save that file.
And now I'm finished with my configuration and I can allow WordPress to install itself inside of my
map server.
Now remember I know that the working you are ill for my map installation is localhost slash something
and so I'm going to open a new tab in my browser.
And this time I'm going to reference the folder name
that I created for my site.
Now when I navigate to that web address if it's working correctly I should see a WordPress installation
screen.
Now that you can choose the language that I want to install WordPress with and then click continue.
And if it's communicating to the database correctly all it needs is a title username and password and
email and it will set up WordPress correctly.
If you didn't set the W.P. config file up correctly and it can't see the database then it may actually
be asking you for database information here and it's OK to install Wordpress and allow the script to
create the W.P. config file for you.
But I wanted to show you how to do it manually so you know where all the information is held.
So let's choose a site title
of course to for my example and your username and password can be anything you like.
I like to choose a password that I can remember doesn't need to be that secure since this is a local
installation.
And then you can choose an email
just click install WordPress you should get a success message in just a moment.
There you go.
There's a log in button and you need to remember the password that you chose.
And when you log in you should be welcomed with nice welcome dashboard screen showing that your site
is working.
Congratulations.
Now depending on which version of Wordpress you've installed you're welcome screen might look slightly
different either way.
Always download and install the latest version of WordPress.
For security reasons and to get the most features you can roll over the name of your site at the top
and click visit site.
I like to write click and open a new tab.
You can take a look at what your new site looks like.
Great.
In this video you install a map on your local computer set up a database edited the WP dash config file
and install WordPress.
Now you can play around with creating WordPress websites without any need for an internet connection
totally in private as much as you want.
Next we'll explore the inner workings of your new local WordPress installation to get to know how everything
works together.
See there.