WordPress newbie needs help with categories

• 

  tomeden · Member · Feb 4, 2015 at 7:25 pm

  • Copy link
  • Add topic to favorites

  Hi there,

  Totally new to this so please be patient!

  I basically want to know how to file my posts into sections/ categories – e.g ‘Books’ ‘Films’ ‘Travel’ etc.

  I’ve experimented with ‘Pages’ but I dont think this is the right functionality. Do I need to create a custom menu?

  Thanks,
  Tom

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

• 

  timethief · Member · Feb 4, 2015 at 7:27 pm

  • Copy link

  Hello there,

  Do I need to create a custom menu?

  Yes.

  There are many misunderstandings and misconceptions when it comes to custom menus. I suggest you read these two posts I link to below.
  http://wpbtips.wordpress.com/2010/06/30/posts-on-pages/
  http://wpbtips.wordpress.com/2011/12/19/custom-menus/

  Technically you can’t post to more than one page on any blog but do read on. Static Pages and dynamic Category Pages are not the same. The former cannot automatically update but the latter do.
  http://en.support.wordpress.com/pages/
  http://en.support.wordpress.com/category-pages/

  If you want to have pages that do update then they must be dynamic category pages (and sub-category pages) that will automatically update every time you publish a post assigned to the relevant category and/or sub-category.

  By default the front page of the blog is the post that displays all posts in your blog. Though there is only one dynamic page in a blog for posts (not pages) http://en.support.wordpress.com/post-vs-page/ and we cannot post to more than that one page, we can create the appearance that we have posted to more than one page.

  We organize posts by assigning categories to them. You can create a custom menu and add the dynamic categories and sub-categories pages into the custom menu, and order them as you wish.

  First you add categories to Posts.
  http://en.support.wordpress.com/posts/categories/

  Then you create a custom menu.
  http://en.support.wordpress.com/menus/

  And you add the dynamic category pages into it
  http://en.support.wordpress.com/menus/#adding-category-pages

  NOTE: Until you actually assign categories to relevant posts the dynamic category pages will have no data that can be displayed on them.

  http://en.support.wordpress.com/posts/categories/
  http://en.support.wordpress.com/menus/
  http://en.support.wordpress.com/menus/#adding-category-pages

  Menus

• 

  tomeden · Member · Feb 4, 2015 at 8:54 pm

  • Copy link

  Thanks for your swift reply. I think I’ve sorted it now!

• 

  timethief · Member · Feb 4, 2015 at 8:54 pm

  • Copy link

  Good going and best wishes with your site.