WordPress School: WordPress Resources

We’ve just started Lorelle’s WordPress School free online course and you are welcome to join at any time. It is a slow-moving, at-you-own-pace course to learn WordPress from the inside out. As you go through the course, you will need to find more help and resources on WordPress, and this is your starting list.

Below is a table of contents list of links for the various sections in this article.

The list of WordPress resources below serve two key purposes for a WordPress use and participant in this online course. First, to find the help you need, and second, to track and network with WordPress news, techniques, and community.

A WordPress resource, in my mind, is a site focused specifically on WordPress, published by an experienced WordPress user, adhere to WordPress practices, standards, and professionalism, and one that has stood the test of time to consistently provide valuable information and solutions. There are many sites, some young, some old, that declare themselves WordPress experts, but fail to meet the above criteria. There are also many sites available today with WordPress information, so I’ve honed down my list to the ones I feel are the most important and pertinent to the course.

To use this list, you may bookmark this web page, print or save it to your computer files, or add these sites to your feed reader. I will be talking more about feeds and feed readers in this course, but you can start with “Blog Exercises: Feed Readers” to learn more about how they work and how to use them.

• WordPress News
• Where to Find WordPress Help and Information
• WordPress Events and WordCamps
• Unofficial But Exceptional WordPress Resources

WordPress News

Jump Link Lists

The table of contents shown on this post is called a jump link list. It is a collection of links that “jump” when clicked to another section on this web page. We will cover how to create a jump link list later in the course, but remember this as it serves as an example.

The following are the key sources for official information about WordPress, WordPress.com, and Automattic. These sites are important for tracking WordPress news, announcements, activities, and community.

• WordPress Official News Sources
  • WordPress News
  • WordPress.com News
  • WordPress Tavern
  • WordPress Planet (official WordPress feed)
  • Planet WordPress (unofficial WordPress feed)
• WordPress Extensions (Themes and Plugins)
  • WordPress Theme Directory
  • WordPress Plugin Directory
• WordPress Development
  • Make WordPress – Core
  • Make WordPress – UI (User Interface)
  • Make WordPress – Accessibility
  • Make WordPress – Mobile
  • Make WordPress – Support
  • Make WordPress – Polyglots
  • Make WordPress – Themes
  • Make WordPress – Documentation
  • Make WordPress – Community
  • Make WordPress – Plugins
  • Make WordPress – Training
  • Make WordPress – Meta
  • WordPress Trac
  • WordPress Trac: Timeline (feed of development timeline)
• Automattic
  • Automattic
  • Akismet
  • Jetpack WordPress Plugin
  • VIP News – WordPress.com VIP – Enterprise WordPress
  • BuddyPress
  • PollDaddy
  • Gravatar
  • WordPress Publisher Blog (Enterprise Clients)

Where to Find WordPress Help and Information

The following are resources to find official help from WordPress, with tips on how to maximize that help.

• Official Documentation and Manuals
  • WordPress Codex (Online Manual)
  • Learn WordPress
  • WordPress.com Support Docs
  • WordPress Handbooks (under development)
    • WordPress Core Handbook
    • WordPress Docs Handbook
    • WordPress Mobile Handbook
    • WordPress Polyglots Handbook
    • WordPress Support Handbook
• Support Forums and Services
  • WordPress Support Forums (self-hosted)
  • WordPress.com Forums (hosted)
  • WordPress.tv (Video)
• Documentation
  • New To WordPress – Where to Start
  • First Steps With WordPress
  • Finding WordPress Help « WordPress Codex
  • WordPress Features
  • Using the Support Forums « WordPress Codex

WordPress Events and WordCamps

A WordCamp is a conference event held in a regional area bringing WordPress fans and experts together to learn from each other for a day or so. A WordPress Meetup is a regularly scheduled meeting that does the same for a few hours. There are WordPress Meetups all over the world, and most likely one in your community. If not, start one.

• WordCamp Central
• WordPress Meetup groups

Unofficial But Exceptional WordPress Resources

The following are bloggers covering WordPress extensively. It might not be the only thing they cover, but they specialize in offer extensive WordPress tips, advice, techniques, and how-tos.

• Lorelle on WordPress
• Digging into WordPress
• WordPress for Beginners
• Justin Tadlock
• Konstantin Kovshenin
• Otto on WordPress
• Perishable Press
• sillybean.net
• Theme.fm
• ThemeShaper
• Smashing Magazine – WordPress
• ManageWP.org
• Torque Magazine
• WP Dude
• WPEngineer
• Hack WordPress
• CatsWhoCode
• Post Status
• Vladimir Prelovac
• Press Coders
• WP Recipes
• Yoast’s WordPress Blog
• WPMU DEV’s Blog
• WordPress Alltop RSS (feed aggregator – contains non-WordPress stuff, too)

There are many resources and references out there for WordPress. Have any favorites you turn to over and over again?

This is a tutorial from Lorelle’s WordPress School. For more information, and to join this free, year-long, online WordPress School, see:

• Lorelle’s WordPress School Introduction
• Lorelle’s WordPress School Description
• WordPress School Tutorials List
• WordPress Publishing Checklist
• How to Give Feedback and Criticism

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