404 Error reading on all drafts

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  irreverendforhire · Member · Jul 10, 2011 at 7:03 pm

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  I have been leaving quite a large number of pages as drafts so that they do not all appear on the homepage, but when I am not logged in I get a 404 Error reading on all of these pages – the only work-around I can find is to publish them, but I don’t want a menu of 200 page titles. Can anyone help with this? If so, please help me through this step by step – I’m still a beginner at this sort of thing. Thanks!

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

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  airodyssey · Member · Jul 10, 2011 at 7:19 pm

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  Hi. This is perfectly normal because unless a page is published, it does not exist to the public.

  If you don’t want “a menu of 200 page titles”, you can create a custom menu where you add only those pages (or categories, etc.) that you want:

  Menus

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  justjennifer · Member · Jul 10, 2011 at 7:24 pm

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  It sounds to me like you’re trying to publish Posts as Pages. Perhaps we should start with a little reading first:

  Pages vs. Posts

  Now, if after reading that you are certain that it’s Pages you want to publish instead of Posts, you can do this and as airodyssey mentioned, create a Custom Menu.

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  irreverendforhire · Member · Jul 10, 2011 at 8:43 pm

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  Thanks guys – yes, I do want to create Pages. It seems like the Custom Menu is the way to go, but I’m still stuck. I added only the main menu titles I want to appear on the homepage, but I’m still seeing all of the ones I have created listed there. I want a user to be able to access the sub-menus, but not see them in the main sidebar. I’m wondering if it’s because of the particular theme I’m using? (Black-LetterHead) There is no bar with drop-downs at the top of this theme.

  If you wouldn’t mind, maybe you could check the site out to see what I mean (www.encinopokerleague.wordpress.com) All of the page titles are currently visible in the right sidebar – I want only the main titles to be visible.

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  thesacredpath · Member · Jul 10, 2011 at 9:17 pm

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  Black letterhead does not have top navigation so you would have to use the custom menu widget in the sidebar, and the custom menu widget does not do drop downs, so submenu items will show indented below the parent menu item, which is going to make for a very long menu if you have 200 pages.

  My suggestion would be to look at other themes and find one that you like that has top navigation.

  This is just my opinion, but 200 pages are going to send a lot of visitors running in the other direction as the navigation is going to be complex, no matter what you do. The thing with using posts is that you can then organize them by categories which helps your visitors zero in on what they are looking for, and the categories can be placed in the top navigation, or you can even use the categories widget in the sidebar if you wish.

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  thesacredpath · Member · Jul 10, 2011 at 9:35 pm

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  I see you have changed themes. On the submenu items, the one thing that some people miss when creating their custom menu is they forget to do is go to the theme locations module at upper left and select the name of their custom menu from the pulldown and then save.