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Controlling Categories

  1. agrondahl
    Member

    I am using categories to 'divvy' up posts into organized sections. This is great. (Especially because I have distinctly different user groups, and now they can just click on their category to read posts for them.

    One problem: I want my "Uncategorized" (or, in my case: General/unfiltered) Category to be the default, in that, when people come to the blog, BEFORE they click a category to drill down to specific areas of interest....

    I was GENERAL/UNFILTERED to be the category that greets people when they arrive at the blog.

    But I can't find a way to do that - I can't seem to control it.

    Any suggestions?? Thanks a million!

    The blog I need help with is intrepidpens.org.

  2. 1tess
    Moderator

    hi agrondahl,
    we fellow bloggers/volunteers in this forum need to have a link to your blog, or even to the specific post you are asking about. Start with http://
    If you can do that, then we could take a look at what you are asking about.

  3. agrondahl
    Member

    sorry! thanks - yes, it's intrepidpens.org
    Or, eastmeetswestbookclub.wordpress.com

  4. agrondahl
    Member

    Help please! I still haven't figured this out.
    (The question was: How do I control which "Category" comes up when people land on my blog; which is the default/first category they see?)
    Thanks!

  5. timethief
    Member

    @agrondahl
    This is a clickable link http://eastmeetswestbookclub.wordpress.com and this is also a clickable link http://intrepidpens.org Clickable links are useful. Non-clickable links are not and posting them simply slows down how long it will take to get an answer to your question.

  6. timethief
    Member

    Categories are alphabetically arranged and the only way you can change the order is by using numbers.
    Example:
    Apples
    Bananas
    Cherries

    1 Cherries
    2 Bananas
    3 Apples

  7. agrondahl
    Member

    Timethief! Thank you so much! Does that mean that "1" will be the default/first category to appear when people access the blog? Thank you so much!

  8. agrondahl
    Member

    Oops - well, that solved HALF the problem. It forced the order that I want in the sidebar, but it doesn't force the "1" (or in my case "General"/Uncategorized) category to appear first.

  9. agrondahl
    Member

    When people show up on my blog, I want them to automatically see the "1 General" category. How do I make that happen? (I'm sorry if I'm frustratingly dumb - I'm just figuring out WordPress.com and I have some pretty needy blog-users. (It's for a non-profit I run, and it needs to be super easy to navigate. If people show up an see a different thing then they expected, they'll get confused.)

    THANK YOU!

  10. timethief
    Member

    The category with 1 in front of it will be the first one displayed by the Categories widget. All categories with numbers up front will be displayed in numerical order.

  11. timethief
    Member

    It's my experience that what bloggers think their readers will see first and what readers choose to look at first are often different things. Reader come to read your most recent posts. Very few will will click the Categories venture beyond the front page of your blog.

  12. timethief
    Member

    Oh great. I see you have done the numbering of the categories now and it looks fine. :) Happy blogging!

  13. agrondahl
    Member

    Yes - but it still doesn't force the "1 General" Category to appear first. Actually, the "3 Creative Writing Circle" is appearing first when users come to the blog and I can not figure out why. Would making 1 General the PARENT help? Again, I'm very new.

    (Also, I completely agree with you when it comes to regular blogs/bloggers/visitors. However I have to guide my (mostly illiterate) users through pretty carefully.)

    Thanks!

  14. timethief
    Member

    this is the order I am seeing using Firefox 3.6.4
    Categories
    Categories

    * 1 General (Unfiltered)
    * 2 Book Club Forum
    * 3 Creative Writing Circle
    * 4 News

  15. agrondahl
    Member

    Yes, and that's what I see too - in the side bar/bubble.
    But what I want is this:
    When people go to the blog (ie: type in the url in the address bar) and it appears in the browser, I want them to SEE "1 General" first (like all the posts going down the left side), and then be able to choose where to go next from the "category" list in the sidebar.
    Right now, when I (and others) do that, the first thing they see when they land on the page is the Creative Writing Circle stuff.
    That's not what I want.

    Thanks for not abandoning me yet, Time Thief. I really appreciate it!

  16. timethief
    Member

    I'm no seeing the word "categories" twice. Sorry that was an error on my part. I see only one widget title 'Categories".

    Are you sure you are not viewing a cached version? Please log out, force clear your broswer cache and cookies and log in again.
    http://en.support.wordpress.com/browser-issues/

  17. timethief
    Member

    I'm barely hanging in here.
    Do you want to have a theme with a left hand sidebar?
    Then you can place the Categories widget at the very top followed by all the other widgets.
    That can be done. All you have to do is switch themes and rearrange the widgets.

  18. taletellerin
    Member

    Hello. I believe I at least understand what agrondahl wants - you want people who come to your blog not to see the post they normally appear, by date. But instead what can be seen here http://intrepidpens.org/category/1-general-unfiltered/ should be see when people come to http://intrepidpens.org/, right?

    Sadly, I'm not to sure how to go about that as I'm also pretty new and not too savy yet with the technical side. Maybe if you'd make the home page static and had it re-directed to the category-url but yes. No idea if and how that would be done. Sorry.

    But hopefully I could at least help clearing up the request for the next experienced person to help.

  19. panaghiotisadam
    Member

    @agrondahl: There's no way to do what you're looking for without at least one click. By default, your blog front displays your latest posts regardless of which category they've been filed under. The only thing you can do is create an intro page (Pages > Add New), set your front to display that page instead of your latest posts (Settings > Reading), and then a visitor will have to click on a category to view the posts filed under that category.

  20. megancrandell
    Member

    Another thing you could do is change the timestamp in the posts -- that is, go into the post settings (on the right-hand side if you edit the post) and set the date for the posts you want to see first to a more recent day. Then they'll seem as if they were posted the most recently, and will appear first when users load the page.

  21. justjennifer
    Member

    @megancrandell-Doing that will massively screw up any search engine index of your site. Any visitor coming in from a search engine will find a 404 error waiting for them instead of the post that was indexed.

  22. timethief
    Member

    @megancrandell
    What a dreadful idea! The date is an important element in the URL. Don't do it. - never change date/timestamps as doing so breaks the URL and creates a 404 (page not found).

  23. timethief
    Member

    ~~ simultaneous warning - No, don't change datestamps!

  24. justjennifer
    Member

    (on my mark...LOL!)

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