This article will explore how to install, configure and publish a WordPress blog using Microsoft’s WebMatrix. WordPress is an open source software that you can use to create a web site or a blog. WebMatrix is a free tool that allows you to create, customize, and publish web pages. It gives a number of different ways that you can create websites. One of the features is providing existing open sources applications such as WordPress, Joomla, DotNetNuke or Umbraco.

WebMatrix can be downloaded for free at www.microsoft.com/web/webmatrix.

Using WordPress and WebMatrix

When you launch WebMatrix you will see several options on how to create a new application. To get started with our WordPress application, select “App Gallery”.

We will now choose “WordPress” to install the application.

You may be prompted to install MySQL if it is not already present on your machine. If it is not installed, WebMatrix will install it for you when your site is created. Provide a password for the MySQL administrator account.

You will be prompted to accept license agreement terms. Click the “I Accept” button.

You will now see a loading screen.

After the installation, you’ll be asked for some application parameters. WebMatrix will have populated these for you already. All you need to do is click Next.

Once the installation is finished, you will see a confirmation. A database will have been created for you locally.

Clicking the “OK” button will take us to our workspace in WebMatrix.

We can now configure our WordPress application and get started adding content. To do this, run the root folder of our application by clicking the “Run” button on the menu ribbon. A browser will open with the WordPress installation page.

Fill in the form with your site’s name, an admin username and password, and your email address.

You will receive a success message. You can now log into your WordPress site as an admin to start adding content!

Log in with the admin username and password you created during the installation process.

You will be taken to your WordPress dashboard. This is where you can customize your site, manage your content, or create new content. It also contains information about your site and its content.

One of the first things we can do is change the theme of our WordPress site. To do this, click on “Appearance” on the Dashboard menu on the left. You will be taken to your Themes page. From here, you can manage your installed themes or install more themes.

Right now we only have one theme installed - the default WordPress theme called Twenty Eleven 1.3. To install more themes, click the “Install Themes” tab. Here you can search for themes or browse. Choose any of these themes and install it by clicking the “install” link. You will receive a message on your screen notifying you that the theme is installing.

Once it is successfully installed, you can preview or activate the theme. To activate the theme, you simply have to click on the “activate” link under the theme. Once a theme has been activated, you will receive a confirmation at the top of the page.

We just successfully customized your WordPress site by changing the theme!

Now we can add content to our site. You may have noticed when you first logged in that your site already contains a blog post and a comment. This information can be seen on your site’s Dashboard.

You can choose to change the default blog post or you can create a new post altogether. Let’s create a new post.

Clicking on “Posts” in our Dashboard’s menu will take us to our Posts manager page. This page shows information about our current posts. We can choose to edit or delete our existing posts or to create a new post. To create a new post, click on the “add new” button.

On the “Add New Post” page we must give the post a title and some content. The text editor allows you to style the text of your post. You can also add media items such as music, video, and images to your post. You also have the option of adding an excerpt and a category for your post. Once you are done adding content to your post, you can save a draft or publish it. In order for your post to appear on your site, you must publish it! You can do this by clicking on the “Publish” button.

Once you publish your post, you will receive a confirmation message at the top of the page. You can continue adding and editing content and publishing the page as long as you want.

When you are done adding content to your WordPress site, we can publish it!

There are several companies that are offering free WebMatrix hosting. You can find this information under the Publish icon on the ribbon or by clicking the link on your WebMatrix workspace.

Before you can publish your site with WebMatrix, you must configure your publishing settings. Click on the Publish icon and select settings.

Fill in the information sent to you from your hosting provider. Notice that you will need to add a connection string for your database.

Note: The basic format of a connection string is:

Server={server name sent to your from your webhost};Database={name of database};User Id={your database user name};Password={your database password};

Some webhosts require you to create your own database name, user name and password while others provide you with this information.

It is always a good idea to validate your connection before you publish your web application. It will let you know if WebMatrix was able to successfully connect to the host and database. If it can’t, then your application will not publish correctly!

After clicking publish, WebMatrix will determine what files need to be published. You will then be able to choose what files will be published.

Once you have chosen what files to be published, WebMatrix will start publishing your site. There will be a progress bar on the bottom of WebMatrix. This bar will let you know what file WebMatrix is currently publishing. If this is the first time publishing your site, this may take up to a few minutes.

Once your site’s publishing is complete, you will receive a message on this bar. You can click on the site’s link to be taken to your newly published site!

That’s it! We easily and quickly installed, configured, and published our WordPress site.