Confusing basic notions
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I am very confused with the notions of menu, categories and pages.
Let me explain what I want to achieve:
I wish to have 4 headings in my main horizontal menu, e.g. History – Paintings – Poetry – Photos.
Then I wish that under these 4 main headings appear sub-headings e.g. Poetry/Poetry in French – Poetry in English – Poetry in Spanish.
Then I wish that when a visitor navigates to sub heading he/she shall be presented for instance with a vertical listing of the content e.g. Poem 1 – Poem 2 – Poem 3 etc so that he can access it and even eventually dowlnload.I have been struggling with this for the last 2 weeks (not every day, I admit :-)) and can’t seem to find head nor tail in the WordPress system.
Can someone kindly send me an “how-to” bullet points list.
I am sure that what I wish can be done but that I am confusing the various notions and now I am completely lost.
Thanks and many good points in heaven for whom comes with the right explanation.
Kind regards
Michel
Blog url: http://bellaicheart.wordpress.com/The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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First study the difference between posts and pages:
http://en.support.wordpress.com/post-vs-page/
Posts are entries listed in reverse chronological order. They can be assigned to a category.
Pages are static and are not listed by date. Pages do not use tags or categories.
You cannot post to a page: you have only one dynamically updating section per blog (calling it a “page” is a bit confusing).
More information here:
http://wpbtips.wordpress.com/2010/06/30/posts-on-pages/You need to publish at least one post which is assigned to each of your catetories: History Paintings Poetry Photos.
(or four posts, one post per category)
Categories won’t appear until at least one post is using that category.
http://en.support.wordpress.com/posts/categories/The menu is the way readers can navigate from one part of your blog to another. The basic menu has tabs to show your Home Page (sometimes called the front page or blog page). In addition most folks have a static “About Page” or more static pages containing info that doesn’t change.
You can make a custom menu to show readers how to get to other places. For example, you could add a tab on the menu to link your readers to another site online. Or you could link to your posts about History, Paintings, etc. That is, you can link to your posts according to the category you assigned to them.
Here are details about setting up a custom menu:
http://en.support.wordpress.com/menus/
and an article that addresses some common misunderstandings about custom menus: -
Then I wish that under these 4 main headings appear sub-headings e.g. Poetry/Poetry in French – Poetry in English – Poetry in Spanish.
Categories can be organized hierarchically. So you would make a sub-category for each language.
Again, they won’t be displayed in the category widget until you have at least one post assigned to that sub-category.
http://en.support.wordpress.com/posts/categories/(IMO, even if you eventually set up a custom menu, having a category widget is very convenient from a reader’s point of view.)
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i and thanks. I think that you are eaning your points in heaven :-)
Ia m slowly beginning to get a little less confused but I believe that practicing will make me undsrtand exactly what you mean. However, I find it curious and maybe one of the reasons for my confusion that, as you write “Categories won’t appear until at least one post is using that category.”. I think that what I was trying to do was actually organise the complete tree structure first and then begin to fill it with information. In fact it’s nearly the reverse isn’t it? I need to cerate the categories and then post something to a category inorder for it to become visible.
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You can put empty categories into a custom menu: the tab won’t link to anything though so no post will appear until you write at least one post using that category, if you see what I mean.
You can do it your way, with the structure first, but it could be confusing to test your menu and get a 404 not found error because there is no post to show.
While you are setting up, the posts can be as simple as “This is Poetry Main” then for the child pages “This is French poetry”. The important thing is that these are posts. and you are assigning categories to them.
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Thanks again. The fog is slowly begiining to lift from my weary brain. I think I’ll get there. Like I said, what I need now is practice.
Wherever you are in the world, I wish you an excellent Sunday or whatever is left of it.
KR
Michel
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Just linked to your blog Japanese kitchen. Looks very nice indeed and the recipes mouth-watering. Which theme did you use to build it that way. In fact it’s pretty close to what I would like to achieve
KR
Michel
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It’s a modified Imalance2 theme. I started using it before there were more magazine style themes available.
Tess
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I am having a similar problem. When I create pages without creating a menu (I guess I am using the default menu), they appear nicely on the menu with sub-categories. But when I create a menu of my own and add pages to the menu, they no longer have sub categories.
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@hostosintensive
You create a custom menu instead, http://en.support.wordpress.com/menus/ add the categories pages and sub-categories pages to it http://en.support.wordpress.com/menus/#adding-category-pages and order them in a hierarchical structure ie. as dropdowns from parent categories. http://en.support.wordpress.com/menus/#changing-the-order-of-menu-items-and-creating-sub-menus
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Hi Timethief,
Nice name. I like :-).
Thanks for your tips. I’ll try them tomorrow. That looks like the answer to my prayers.
Kind regards
Michel
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