Make home page NOT the home page

Tom,

Step by step instructions? Well, that’s a bit tough for me to describe.

In my opinion, it’s not really that difficult, but I’ve been playing with WordPress for a while now. So I do take lots for granted.

The short version is for you to install WordPress first on your root directory (on a web server you can play with, not on a production server) then configure your WordPress installation to use a static front page.

https://codex.www.ads-software.com/Creating_a_Static_Front_Page

For a more in depth introduction to WordPress, check out Lisa Sabin-Wilson’s WordPress for Dummies. Don’t let the dummies part put you off, Lisa is really good and well received.

You could say she’s a WordPress Rock Star. ??

For a really longer version, teach yourself about theme development. For any WordPress template work such as front-page.php normally you look at how the loop works as well as theme development. You’ll also need to get some PHP syntax and understanding as well.

https://codex.www.ads-software.com/The_Loop_in_Action
https://codex.www.ads-software.com/Theme_Development

For what you’re describing you want a WordPress blog (that’s good) but want the Dreamweaver generated page to be the landing point. If you want to do that with HTML, using WordPress in a sub directory is the easiest way to go. You just put a link to the WordPress URL on that landing page.

If you want to do it all in WordPress, then you’ve lots of learning ahead of you. If you don’t mind the learning curve, it’s great fun and a good challenge.

Okay, I’ve decided to rename my /wordpress directory and call it /author instead.

How should I do that? Create a new directory named author and copy all the files over, or rename the existing directory?

thanks

How should I do that? Create a new directory named author and copy all the files over, or rename the existing directory?

As this is a brand new installation it would probably be easiest to extract the WordPress zip file and just rename the /wordpress directory to /author.

Once that’s done, visit https://your-url-here/author/wp-admin/install.php and take it from there.

https://codex.www.ads-software.com/Installing_WordPress#Famous_5-Minute_Install

But I want to save all my work — months of it! If i start a brand new installation, all of that will be lost, wouldn’t it?

“As this is a brand new installation it would probably be easiest to extract the WordPress zip file and just rename the /wordpress directory to /author.”

So, re-install WP on my server and call it author? I can do that, but I’m confused by this:

“Once that’s done, visit https://your-url-here/author/wp-admin/install.php and take it from there.”

thanks

But I want to save all my work — months of it! If i start a brand new installation, all of that will be lost, wouldn’t it?

Yes, it would… well, maybe. If the mysql settings were the same then you’d not lose anything.

I incorrectly thought it was a new installation. I hope you have file and database backups as a just in case.

https://codex.www.ads-software.com/WordPress_Backups
https://codex.www.ads-software.com/Backing_Up_Your_Database
https://codex.www.ads-software.com/Restoring_Your_Database_From_Backup

As you probably know already, backups are your friend and should be respected.

Try this: copy (not move) all of the /wordpress files into the new directory /author. Do that right after the file and database backups are completed.

Then in your dashboard change the WordPress Address (URL) and Site Address (URL) from https://your-url-here/wordpress to https://your-url-here/author

https://your-blog-url/wordpress/wp-admin/options-general.php

You may need to re-login after that step.

Once that’s done, re-save your permalinks.

https://your-blog-url/author/wp-admin/options-permalink.php

That should put your blog now running in /author instead of /wordpress.

If that does work you’ll be able to remove the old /wordpress directory.

If it does not work or something Really Bad Happens? then restore your backups.

Hmm, okay, i will try that, but first

I didn’t understand what you had said, and I thought you were telling me to create a new installation of wordpress into a new directory called “author,” so I did this. I logged onto my server, and installed WP for the second time, with a new directory.

So, I’m not sure what my next steps should be…

thanks

Instead of moving it around, could they just go to the dashboard settng and change the urls from https://thomaskaufman.com/wordpress/ to
https://thomaskaufman.com/author

and then go through via FTP and change the folder name to author.

?

Sorry, i didn’t understand your last post. Who is “they?” What is it they are moving around? Do you mean the WP dashboard? Could you be more specific?

thanks

I think hazelbug means you but I could be wrong. I mean, I frequently misunderstand what I wrote…

So here’s the thing. I made a way back mistake and forgot that you have https://thomaskaufman.com/wordpress/ installed and working. My bad, but there really was no harm done if you used a new database name or table prefix which it looked like you did.

Both https://thomaskaufman.com/wordpress/ and https://thomaskaufman.com/author/ work so you are good, no harm no foul. ??

To get the blog working in /author instead of /wordpress just follow the instructions I’ve sent above at

https://www.ads-software.com/support/topic/make-home-page-not-the-home-page?replies=24#post-2540727

Make a back up and use the dashboard links to change the URL from /wordpress to /author. This is what hazelbug was alluding to.

Looks like you got it sorted out. Nice blog at https://thomaskaufman.com/author/ ??

All that’s left is to fix the Home button on your menu. It still points to the old /wordpress link.

Yes, I mean they as is tkaufman and it was directly at Jan Dembowski… sorry.

Dashboard is what you call it when you log in to your wordpress site to manage it. Where you write your pages/posts, etc.

At the bottom there is settings. That is where you told wordpress what the url is.

But it sounds like you got it working!

Yes, I mean they as is tkaufman and it was directly at Jan Dembowski… sorry.

No no, it’s all good! Your suggestion was 100% right on and would have worked too. That may have been how he solved it. ??

He could have gone to the dashboard then used a FTP client to rename the /wordpress directory to /author. That would have probably been quicker too. I sometimes over complicate things.

me too! ??

Me three!

But now, there’s a small problem: on each page of my site I link to other pages of the site, usually through images. It seems all of these images are still linked to the old directory (thomaskaufman.com/wordpress/image.jpg) and not the new directory (thomaskaufman.com/author/image.jpg) They didn’t change.

Is there a global fix for this? Or do I have to go thru every page and change each one individually?

thanks

It seems all of these images are still linked to the old directory (thomaskaufman.com/wordpress/image.jpg) and not the new directory (thomaskaufman.com/author/image.jpg) They didn’t change.

Not surprising, that data is stored in the post itself I think.

There is a solution using search and replace, but it really does require that you make a full backup of your blog’s database and files.

https://codex.www.ads-software.com/WordPress_Backups
https://codex.www.ads-software.com/Backing_Up_Your_Database
https://codex.www.ads-software.com/Restoring_Your_Database_From_Backup

This is just in case but if something goes catastrophically bad then this will save you hours of grief.

Once that’s done, install the Search and Replace plugin.

https://www.ads-software.com/extend/plugins/search-and-replace/

Use that to replace all occurrences of https://thomaskaufman.com/wordpress with https://thomaskaufman.com/author. Please note to leave off the trailing /.

That should take care of all the old references in the database and change them to the new URL.

And if something goes wrong, you can restore your database and get it back to the way it was.