New WordPress User Needs Guidance

  • I am brand new to WordPress. 12 hours ago I was asked to help a friend who’s business website was developed using WP but the original developer is no longer available to help my friend or get me started by showing me a few of the ropes.

    What I mainly need is some help getting started. The site is already loaded on a server and running live. I want to make some changes that my friend needs but dont know where to find these specific things or if they were add-ons the original developer pulled in or what. To begin it would be nice to have an environment set up locally that I can download the website files to and just get acquainted with the tool and make some random changes to see how stuff works. They’ve been using Filezilla as well, which is also new to me. Right now I’m more afraid of accidentally changing something than anything else, so it would be great if someone can give me some steps on how to get a local environment set up and download the website files, all without negatively affecting the website currently running. I’ve read the Getting Started sections and many others, but none really help answer the most basic of questions I have, like…
    1) how a new WP user gets started setting up WP and safely working with an EXISTING WP website already running live
    2) how to save the index.php file in the Theme editor of the Appearance section once I’ve made changes to it, or if theres another more user-friendly part of WP that I would go to in order to make changes to this file
    3) how to see all the pages of a website or determine if they are automatically generated.
    Just typical getting started questions one might ask a coworker who is already well versed in WP.

    Can anyone provide me a little guidance in getting started, or at least point me to something else that may be helpful? This is a very straightforward and simplistic website, but the changes I need to make are urgent. I’d really like to help my friend but I dont want the WP learning curve to be a huge bottleneck in doing that.

    Thanks in advance!

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
  • Thread Starter weaslebub

    (@weaslebub)

    BTW, I am under a serious time constraint, so even a small suggestion or two on getting started in this circumstance could prove beneficial.

    To begin it would be nice to have an environment set up locally that I can download the website files to and just get acquainted with the tool and make some random changes to see how stuff works

    I have articles on my website (click on my name )to guide you on how to install wordpress locally on your computer to learn wordpress using wamp or easyphp server

    You will information on how to use wordpress

    https://codex.www.ads-software.com/Getting_Started_with_WordPress#WordPress_for_Beginners

    If you like you may contact me on skype so I can help you
    From my website

    Thread Starter weaslebub

    (@weaslebub)

    Thanks for the direction govpatel. I will start there.

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
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