A Wordpress Practice site

A great way to hone your Wordpress skills if you running and maintaining a "live" website or blog is to have a "Practice Site". This site is a "free" site but you will be able to trouble-shoot most of you want to do on your subscribed site without "breaking" it!

Some of the things you will be able to do is to become familiar with the Block editor and use it to create a basic Contact form.

Limitations

There will be some limitations on having a "free" Wordpress site and you will be constantly "hounded" by Wordpress to upgrade to a subscription. They will tell you that you will be able to do so much more with a paid subscription. Apart from having access to "Premium Themes" and the fact that you will have to be content with the wordpress URL for your site, a "free" site will enable you get a feel for the development environment and the user interface.

One of the biggest mistake that I see when someone "takes-over" the running of an existing wordpress site is that they will inevitably "break" it! I do not recommend that you use the mobile app if you are attempting this and that you stick to the computer interface at least until you are familiar with the site.

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Having given up on the Village Hall website and hoping to transfer the ownership to another admin, I created a free practice account so that I can at least have an informed opinion in the rare case of being asked for advice!

I am confused! The menu editing seems to be completely different to what I see when logged-in to the Village Hall site. To add and edit the menu on the "practice" site is currently beyond me!

Eureka! - Wordpress want you to use the app........... Dumbed down..........

A screenshot of a prototype of the Paractice site

When I started the Practice site I (think) that I chose the Front Page theme. The selection of themes is another area where Wordpress do not make things clear in my opinion. I started another "free" wordpress site using the 2024 theme.

The Wordpress App

This would explain the inconsistancy between the two accounts. In fact if someone were to take-over the Village Hall website it would be a recommendation that they use the Android App. Here is a dilemma as although the mobile phone is constantly in their hands "real work" is done on a (Windows) computer.

The App seems to be more orientated at those that want to blog rather than the development of a "Web Presence".

As I have seen in the past, wordpress.com have "improved" their interface. They nor have Full Site Editing, Patterns and Template Parts.

What The Daily Egg says: - about wordpress.com (and most definitely .org)

I don't really understand how a "novice" user can use the current Wordpress interface without a steep learning curve.

" But if you have zero coding experience and want a true builder that lets you build a site from the ground up without ever diving into code, you’re not going to find that with WordPress. "

Having "grown-up" trying to use Wordpress I am still at a loss to see how to do certain things. Modifying an existing site ia one thing but starting afresh is another.

.org on Patterns:

" https://wordpress.org/patterns/
Add a beautifully designed, ready to go layout to any WordPress site with a simple copy/paste. "

Some help fromGoDaddy:

" https://www.godaddy.com/resources/skills/wordpress-block-pattern-reusable-block-or-template-part

When should I use a Template Part?
Template parts are ideal for areas of the site that you don't plan to modify often, such as the header and footer of your site. You can also group areas into templates to help you focus on what you are modifying. Before Full Site Editing, Templates and Template Parts would need to be created primarily using code to do so. You can now do all this within the Block Editor experience.

Managing content with the WordPress block editor
You now have more choices for how to create and edit content throughout your site using WordPress blocks. Reusable Blocks help you keep content in sync throughout your site. Block Patterns help you apply the same layout in various regions. Template Parts help you create areas that won't need to be frequently updated but are outside the scope of content like posts and pages. "

A Wordpress Practice site

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