Pantheon/WordPress Setup Tutorial

In order to create a web site on the Internet, you first need to find someone/something to host it for you.

The hosting provider we're going to be using for this first week of CMS is called Pantheon.

Visit the following link and click the big yellow "Get Started" button on that page:

https://pantheon.io/

On the next page(s), fill out the required information to create your Pantheon account.

You can sign up with your Google account, or an email address. Choose whichever method you're most comfortable with.

If you choose to sign up with an email address, you will be required to verify that email address, so be sure to pick an email address with an Inbox you have access to.

Once you've successfully created your account, you'll need to verify your email address before you can log in with the credentials you just entered.

After verifying your email address, go ahead and log in.

After logging in, you'll be asked to fill out a bit more information to finish creating your account.

NOTE: Pantheon changes their account creation flow a couple times a year, so what you see as you sign up may look a little different than the screenshot. That's okay, just fill out the required fields that it needs from you.

Fill out the required fields, and click the [Continue] button.

After creating your account, you may be asked to fill out more information related to customization options in a new popup that appears.

These are optional, and we recommend just clicking the X in the upper right corner to close the popup.

After logging in, you'll be brought to your Pantheon Home page, which should somewhat resemble the screenshot to the right.

NOTE: However, as we've said before, Pantheon changes up their account creation flow periodically, so you may end up on a slightly different view after creating your account.

If that is the case, just click on the "Home" tab in the left sidenav, and that should bring you to where you need to be.

Now that you have your Pantheon account setup, we can create a Pantheon site.

Creating a Pantheon site is kind of like securing the land to build a house; once we create our Pantheon site, we can begin building (installing) our house (WordPress).

Click the [Create New Site] button to get started.

Alternatively, you can also create a new Pantheon site by clicking the "Sites" tab in the navigation on the left.

There, you will find a similar button that says [Create a Free Site].

This will take you into the same workflow as the yellow button on the Home Page.

Once you're on the 'Create a Site' page, under the section that asks 'What Kind of Site?', click the WordPress option.

On the next page, you'll be asked to name your Pantheon site.

Once you create your site, you cannot change the name! If you want to change your site name, your only option is to delete your site and go through this flow again.

Follow the instructions provided in your assignment and name the site as required.

For our course, this will follow the format of
firstname-lastname-[sitetype]

Leave the Site Region as "United States".

Then click the yellow [Continue] button.

Now you'll have to wait a bit for Pantheon to build your site.

It should only take around 5 minutes.

(Don't trust the progress bar; it will fill up and then go back down again several times as Pantheon builds your site.)

Eventually, the bar will fill up completely and turn green when the process is complete.

Click the yellow [Visit your Pantheon Site Dashboard] button.

You should now be on your successfully created Pantheon Site Dashboard.

This is going to get confusing later if you don't pay attention, because we're also going to have a WordPress Dashboard.

The Pantheon Site Dashboard is how you manage and monitor the hosting status of your site. It is also how you access your WordPress site.

This page looks pretty busy, but there's really only two buttons you need to worry about in this course:

• Site Admin
• Clear Caches

The [Site Admin] button is important for working on assignments.

The [Clear Caches] button is important for submitting assignments.

By now, you should be on your Pantheon Site Dashboard.

If you aren't, this can be found by clicking on the Sites tab in the far left navigation bar, and then clicking on the site name you want to access the dashboard for.

Once on the Pantheon Site Dashboard for the site you want to work with, click on the [Site Admin] button underneath the Dev tab, underneath the name of your site.

You should be taken to the WordPress Install Flow.

You may instead be brought to a 404 page, with a little cartoon Zeus character. If this happens, just wait a minute or two and refresh the page.

This just means you were a little too quick, and there was a little more setup that needed to be done behind the scenes before you can start installing WordPress.

Leave the language as "English (United States)", and click the blue [Continue] button.

Next, you'll be brought to a form to fill out some information for the WordPress. Most of it is unimportant and can be changed later... EXCEPT FOR THE USERNAME AND PASSWORD.

If you forget your username and password, the usual "Reset my password" link will NOT work with Pantheon's version of WordPress.

There is a way to reset it, but it involves diving deep into the database and modifying the data inside, which is a complex and somewhat risky process.

So do yourself a favor and WRITE DOWN YOUR USERNAME AND PASSWORD!

We also recommend using the same username and password when you set up a second WordPress site.

As for the Site Title, fill out the text field based on the instructions in your assignment.

If you've forgotten what to fill out here, go back to the assignment!

Your Email is not actually used for anything, so it doesn't matter what you put there.

Leave the Search Engine Visibility checkbox unchecked.

Finally, click the [Install Wordpress] button when you're done.

Next, you should be brought to a "Success!" page, which basically just confirms your chosen Username.

Click the "Log In" link to log into WordPress with the credentials you just specified.

After logging in, you'll find yourself on your WordPress Dashboard.

This dashboard is different from your Pantheon Site Dashboard. Don't get them confused!

This is the Dashboard you'll be working in for most of the CMS portion of the course. From here, you can modify the site settings, add content, and change the site's appearance.

The WordPress Dashboard may feel a bit overwhelming at first, but you'll get more comfortable with it over the course of the week.

However, this is only the "backend" of your WordPress site, where things take place behind-the-scenes.

Only you can access this dashboard; if you try to share links to this page, people won't be able to get in.

To access the "frontend" of the WordPress site (the live version that other people can see), click on the little home icon at the top left of the Dashboard, next to the name of your site.

After clicking the home icon, you'll be brought to the Home page of your WordPress site.

This is actually your WordPress site, but at the moment, there's still a lot of placeholder content, such as "Mindblown: a blog about philosophy" in the screenshot to the right; this content is set using the default WordPress Theme, which changes every year.

Don't worry, as you'll see soon, we can customize all of this! For now, just ignore the default Theme content.

Notice how the home icon in the top left changed into a little speedometer icon instead. Clicking on this icon will bring you back to the Dashboard.

That icon can be helpful in letting you know whether you can share a page with someone else.

• If it's a speedometer icon (indicating you're NOT in the Dashboard), then you can share that URL with other people.
• If it's a home icon (indicating you ARE on the Dashboard), then you can't share that URL with other people, since they won't be able to access it.