How do I add a Child page using the Contempt theme?
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2011/06/24 17.23 GMT-5
Dear Happiness Engineer:
I created a Child page. I then selected a Parent from the drop-down list and assigned it an order of 2.
On the Dashboard’s All Pages, it is listed below the Parent page and the title is preceded with a hyphen.
However, when I click on the Parent Page and scroll down it is not listed. I also performed a search of my blog using a word from the Child Page and it was not found.
Thank you,
Computer Guy Jeff
Blog url: http://computerguyjeff.wordpress.com/ -
To do this, you will need to override the existing menu with your own custom menu at Appearance -> Menus in your blog’s Dashboard.
See this for more info: http://en.support.wordpress.com/menus/
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Dear Macmanx:
This sounds like a Microsoft answer. Undoubtedly you answered my question, and yet I do not have an answer. I am not new to IT, but I am new to WordPress. BTW, I also consulted the only book on WP I could get locally, the Dummies Guide and it was not very useful.
My initial question still stands. The editing of the page allows me to assign a Parent of the new page as well as the Order. When I view all Pages in the Dashboard, I can see it. So why can I not see it when I view my Blog?
As the options are already there, I do not understand why I have to create a Custom Menu. I also read the article on the link you gave me and it does not make a lot of sense.
Thank you.
Computer Guy Jeff
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To answer your original question, the Contempt theme is older and the built in menu for it does not accomodate child pages. The custom menu option, however, is newer and does display child pages.
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What can I help you with regarding creating custom menus? Did you have any specific questions about that?
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Dear Designsimply:
Thank you. Your answer directly addressed my problem and succintly answers it. Since it does NOT support child pages, I would have expected the options for them to be grayed out in the menu. That would have saved me a lot of time trying to figure out what I was dong wrong, and then learning it was not me.
Concerning my questions concerning the creation of custom menus, I am confused as by their discussons of menus. The term seems to be used for different entities.
My understanding of WP is this. It is made for one to post articles. Using the Contempt theme as an example, there is a horizontal menu bar. The first menu is where all Posts go. I call an individual post an article. The articles are in a push-down list,which means the most recent article always goes on top. The articles can be assigned categories and tags. Other readers of the blog can comment on the articles.
The rest of the menu consist of Pages. They can have articles too, but the articles cannot have a category or tags. In addition, the owner of the blog can disallow any comments to the articles. The order of the articles can be fixed (i.e., the latest is not already on top).
With that understanding, creating customized menus does not make any sense. To me, customizing means modifying something that is already created. The instructions are for creating new menus, and adding Pages and Tags and Posts to Menus.
I do not see how that fits in with my understanding of how the blog is supposed to work. I add pages, which are added to the Menu bar. I then add the first article, which I can read when I click on the menu item representing that page. And then it falls apart.
I add a second article, assign it to a Parent, and never see it as the Contempt theme does not allow child pages, even though the commands are there to create one.
Again, the referenced article use of the term menus does not jibe with how I perceive WP to work.
I read the Dummies book on WP and it was not very usefull. For instance, it does not do well in defining Parent pages, child pages, etc. In addition, it does not give an overall explanation of how a blog is supposed to work.
Again, thanks for your help.
Computer Guy Jeff
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Ah, I see the confusion here!
Ok, first, Contempt does support the existence of child pages, it just doesn’t support the display of child pages as drop-downs in the menu, like many newer themes do.
You are right about putting the cart before the horse there. In order to add a child page to menu that you create yourself, you need to create the page first.
Once the page is created, you can then add it to your menu as a drop-down below the parent page.
It’s important to note that parent/child page relationship is still not respected by the custom menu interface. You need to manually position things how you want them to appear.
This article has a video tutorial explaining the positioning of drop-down items: http://en.support.wordpress.com/menus/
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Dear Macmanx:
I had previously studied the article you referenced as well as view the video. It made no sense. Nonetheless I tried to follow it.
I added my one allowable custom menu. It replaced my Home menu with the custom menu. The end result is all my previous Posts were not visible as they are on the Home menu which was replaced by my custom menu. Not only that, but I was unable to build submenus under the one custom menu.
That being said, I think that is attacking the wrong problem. I am NOT looking for custom menus. All I want to do is enter multiple articles under one of the menu items and have them show up in a specific order. That is what I thought the Parent and Order fields are supposed to do.
A concrete example using my blog follows.
Home – The place where all new Posts are placed on the top, and all of the existing ones are pushed down.
The Humorous Side of Computers – This is where I want to put multiple Pages. The first Page, “The Humorous Side of Computers” has been added. I now want to add a second page under that, called, “The Paperless Office, Part I. I added that page and specified “The Humorous Side of Computers” as the Parent and gave it an Order of 2.
I expected to see that as the second Page under “The Humorous Side of Computers.”When I pull up All Pages in the Dashboard, I see that page under “The Humorous Side of Computers” page and it is indented.
Now that you understand what I am trying to do, does the Contemp Theme support this? I would expect it to support it, as those fields are in the Add Page window and they are not grayed out. If not, what similar themes will work.
Now for a different question. In the Main menu, Post, “Do Not Fold, Spindle or Mutilate.” has a gif showing confetti falling. Sometimes I see the gif and other times I see a box with a red “X” in it instead of the gif. What did I do wrong to make it come and go?
Thank you for your continued assistance.
Computer Guy Jeff
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As my colleagues mentioned, the Contempt theme doesn’t support sub-menus in the main navigation bar. You can either try a different theme, or use the menu widget to show the list of pages in the sidebar:
http://en.support.wordpress.com/widgets/custom-menu-widget/As for the image, it looks like there’s an error in the file name. On the post, you’re using the file name “confettiwide2.gif”, but the file is called “confettiwide1.gif”. You can either change the file reference in the post, or just delete it altogether and re-upload it to this post.
For more help with images, see here:
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Dear Ranh:
Thanks for fixing confetti. I missed the name and was confused because sometimes it would work.
I understand about sub-menus in the main navagatation bar, and what I want is NOT a submenu (I think). After I enter a page under the menu, I want a second page, not as a sub-menu item, but rather like the Home menu, where there are multiple pages with the current one on top. For instance, in my Home menu, “Do Not Fold…” is the first item, and “Preventing a Neighbor…” is the second item.
That is what I want to do with a page. I added, “The Paperless Office, Part 2″ and set it to a Parent: The Humorous Side of Computers” with an order or 3. I expected to see it on menu “The Humorous Side of Computers” after “The Paperless Office, Part 2.” Is this function not working for the Contempt theme?
There are multiple posts in the Home menu and I would like this Page menu to work the same way. (I do know one cannot have Catagories and Tags on Pages and that is okay.)
Thank you,
Computer Guy Jeff
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Ah, that is not quite how sub pages and page order works on WordPress.com.
There isn’t a way to have multiple pages appear inline on a parent page automatically. What you would need to do is manually add information and a link to the sub pages you’ve created on your parent page.
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Dear Mr. Spittle:
Yes, I am beginning to see that. Praytell, what is the purpose of the Page Attributes: Parent and Order fields on the Add New Page?
Thank you,
Computer Guy Jeff
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The fields were used to define page hierarchy and order – this was then used by navigation menus and widgets to show lists of links to the pages on the blog.
Pages have existed in WordPress for quite some time, and we’ve made a lot of improvements since they were first introduced. Now, instead of using the parent and order fields, you can use drag-and-drop to manage pages in custom menus. You can create as many menus as you want, each with a custom page order and hierarchy – regardless of what you specify on the page itself.
The parent and order fields are essentially obsolete, but we keep them around for backwards compatibility.
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Dear Ranh and Others:
Thank you. I think I understand it now and also why you keep mentioning custom Menus.
It seems only the first Menu item, where all Posts go, has an order. And that order is a push down stack, where each Post is placed on the top of the stack.
All other Menus in the main navagation bar can point to a single page. So the only way to accomplish what I want is:
01. Create a Custom Menu (the Comtempt theme only supports a single custom menu) with sub-menus. Each Page will be pointed to by a sub-Menu item.
Or
02. Put all entries in the Post and assign a unique Category to them. The reader can then use that Category to filter out those Posts.
Or
03. Investigate the use of Widgets and see if that can make it work.
As a final conclusion, this entire episode could have been avoided if the Add New Page form had indicated the Parent and Order fields are listed for backwards compatibilty and are no longer used. People believe what they read and that is what led to the confusion.
Again, thank you Happiness Engineers who responded to my questions.
Computer Guy Jeff
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