Order of Pages / yet another loss of functionality
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Yet another loss of functionality via an unthought-through change …
My Pages were listed on the left of my Blog in an order that I determined by placing one or more blank spaces before the name of the Page.
That was a way of overriding alphabetical order.
Now they are suddenly alphabetical.
What am I supposed to do now? I will play around and see what’s possible, but if anyone knows, I’d appreciate it if you can share.
Some of these annoyances are basically not worth complaining about, even when they are quite clearly due to sloppiness on WP’s part, not a deliberate change — but this one I do need to sort out.
Thanks!
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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Create a custom menu.
http://en.support.wordpress.com/menus/
Add the Pages to it.
http://en.support.wordpress.com/menus/#adding-pages
Determine the order you want them to display in.
http://en.support.wordpress.com/menus/#changing-the-order-of-menu-items-and-creating-sub-menus
Remove the Pages widget.
Install a custom menu widget instead.
http://en.support.wordpress.com/widgets/custom-menu-widget/ -
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re: loss of functionality
You are using an very old retired theme and themes are not retired unless they do not support all WordPress.COM features. There are other free while minimal themes you can switch to.
http://theme.wordpress.com/themes/features/white/?sort=free&theme-search=minimal They do support all WordPress.com features and holding onto an older theme means you are likely to experience such issues.Themes are just “skins”. You can quickly and easily change themes on any WordPress.COM hosted blog to another one found here http://wordpress.com/themes/ and no data will be lost or negatively affected by the change. The only time you may have to do some work is if you are changing to a dramatically different theme and have done any CSS editing.
Provided you are logged in as Admin under the same username account that registered the blog go to Dashboard > Appearance > Themes and browse themes until you find one you like and click “activate” or type in the name of the theme you want to use and
click the “activate” link when it appears.After you change your theme all you need to do is go here Dashboard > Appearance > Widgets > Inactive Widgets and re-install them where you want them to appear. The widget contents and settings will be the same as they were prior to changing themes.
Also you are using a workaround, one that I myself recommended for many years but the need for it disappeared in June of 2010 when custom menus were introduced. Workarounds are not supported and never have been.
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Btw, is this supposed to be easier?
Yes. The introduction of custom menus was a huge breakthrough.
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The Appearance section says
Your theme does not natively support menus, but you can use them in sidebars by adding a “Custom Menu” widget on the Widgets screen.
Edit your menu below, or create a new menu.
… Which of those should I do? Not clear to me what editing my menu means here. I must not lose data. What exact editing options am I being offered? All I want to do is de-alphabetise.
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If you have a custom menu then you must establish consistency. Check the Pages and sub-pages themselves to see if you have established a Parent page and child page “hierarchical structure” in the page attributes module. Remove if required.
Also remove any numerical “order” numbers you have assigned that may conflict with the order you are creating by dropping and dragging in the custom menu. Or simply change them so they are the same order as you establish in the menu. Establish consistency – problem solved
If you don’t see the Page attributes module on your page, please make sure you’ve selected to display Pages in your Screen Options.
http://en.support.wordpress.com/screen-options/
Page – Likes and Shares, Page Attributes, Featured Image, Discussion, Comments, Page Revisions, Slug, Author, Revisions, Writing Helper -
Just saw your long reply, Thanks. I know my theme is old — but it demands very, very few frills, so I am hoping it will survive in the Darwinian battle. The reason I keep it is for how it displays blockquotes, which is a) virtually unique, b) perfectly suited to what I am doing.
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To be honest, Timethief, your answers are a bit daunting … I’d love it if we can talk, but I guess that’s a precedent you won’t set? My London number is +44 20 7630 7630: I’d call you back!
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Having said which, am probably over panicking, just because I’ve come to expect annoyance from WP. I think I’m getting there.
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OK … having saved a new preferred order, the old menu is still being displayed with the old (ie new) alphabetical order — which I do not want. Any advice?
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There was no parenting and no numbering. I just did a drag job into a new menu and a save — but the old one is still the one that displays on the site.
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I did all this via the Appearance menu. Having gone to Widgets and added another Pages menu from there, it has appeared on my blog (duplicating other one) — but still in alphabetical order, and I can’t see how to change that. If I delete one of these 2 identical menus, is there a change I will be deleting any of my content?
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OK … and sorry for the commentary … but it saves time in the end. I have deleted the new menu. Neither it nor the old one reflected the order of pages I want, so I am where I was at the start of the process.
For legal reasons, I want my Copyright page to appear first, and I have other preferences that I need to reset.
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To summarise … via Appearance, I have dragged my About menu into the order of Pages I want, and the correct order does not display.
I have tried to create the new menu via Widgets, and it just replicates the old order that I need to change.
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Well, phew … I did exactly what the doctor ordered a third time and it suddenly worked. Apologies for the commentary. I hope you are reading from the bottom up.
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