Accessing my site via ftp

  • Unknown's avatar
    nlund74 · Member ·

    Hi,

    I’m very new to WordPress and apart from an HTML course about 15 years ago, have never done anything with websites! That said, WordPress seems pretty straightforward – unless you want to start tweaking things. Unfortunately I need to start tweaking!

    I know I want to create a Child Theme because that’s the smartest way of amending the theme without losing changes when new versions come out. I have the Filezilla client on my pc, ready to access all my files and begin the fun and games of creating a child theme.

    However, I can’t even get my server/username/password right to access the files at the backend. I don’t host my website anywhere – I’ve created the WordPress pages and I presume they’re being hosted by WordPress. I have a domain name which works fine but I’ve never accessed the CSS files.

    I’ve tried the following:

    username: <my prefix>.wordpress.com
    login: <email address I use for wordpress>
    password: <password I use for wordpress>

    That doesn’t work. I’ve tried leaving out the login/password but that doesn’t work either.

    I’m sure I’m making a blindingly obvious mistake but with pretty much zero knowledge/experience it’s so frustrating – the child theme is going to be enough of a test without the extra challenge of not even being able to access the right folder structure! Can anyone help me please – I’m sure I could try a different theme but it’s got to the point where I don’t want to give in…just yet!

    Thanks,

    Nick

    The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)

  • staff-ozmodiar · Staff ·

    The things you are asking about all apply to self-hosted WordPress sites using the software available on WordPress.org.. Here is a link that describes the basic differences between WordPress.com and WordPress.org:

    WordPress.com vs. WordPress.org

    There is no FTP access on WordPress.com, all uploading is done through your dashboard interface. WordPress.com sites also do not have the ability to use child themes. So if that is an important feature for you, you may wish to look into setting up a self-hosted site.

    Please let me know if you have further questions or if anything is unclear.

  • Unknown's avatar
    nlund74 · Member ·

    Thanks so much for that – so simple when you know why and that link was very helpful.

    I think I’ll go with .com for now – as a newbie I think my hands are dirty enough just getting the content in place. I can modify fonts/colours/some images for very basic tweaking. I’ll check with the customer (my wife!) but I think we’ll keep it straightforward for now.

    I have a feeling I’ll be using these forums a lot if/when I switch to .org!

    Thanks again,

    Nick

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