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1. drdemshar
   Member
   Jul 30, 2009, 11:30 PM

   hi, i'm very new to wordpress and love the ease of use but i'm finding myself a bit limited in certain areas of customizability. it probably has something to do with my wanting to create this particular site as more of a static content site and less like a blog, but i digress. the problem i'm trying to resolve is demonstrated on this page (http://drdemshar.wordpress.com/flying-samaritans/). what i'm trying to do is create a main page for each category, in this case the "flying samaritans", and then have code on that page dynamically grab a list of posts matching that category and listing them. this is mainly so each page can be clicked on individually instead of having them all list like in a standard blog. is this possible? i'll buy upgrade features if necessary.

   The blog I need help with is drdemshar.wordpress.com.

2. thesacredpath
   Member
   Jul 31, 2009, 1:51 AM

   There was a new archives shortcode feature that showed up the other day and it would work well for this, but there is no categories option. I've contacted staff and asked them if it is an option they could add to the shortcode, but I won't know anything until I hear back from them. I've bookmarked this thread and will post back here when I hear back from them. A categories option would be a good addition to the shortcode.

   You can read about the archives shortcode here: http://support.wordpress.com/archives-shortcode/ .

3. 1tess
   Moderator
   Jul 31, 2009, 2:26 AM

   drdemshar
   This might be of interest. I don't know how many categories you have but here is a way to put a navigation tab to the category page you mentioned. Some themes allow only one row of navigation tabs, so if you have lots of them, this may not be useful:
   http://wpbtips.wordpress.com/2009/03/26/page-tabs-as-external-links/

   I agree with tsp that a shortcode for cats would be extremely useful, but so far it is not available…

4. thesacredpath
   Member
   Jul 31, 2009, 3:52 AM

   I heard back from staff, and the function used for the archive shortcode does not have a category parameter to filter by, but it may be something they could add in the future.

   Sad to say in this case that what you might have to do if you want an introductory paragraph and then a list of just the post titles by category, is to create your own and then manually update it each time you create a new post in that category.

   Have a look at this blog post, http://wpbtips.wordpress.com/2009/03/25/full-posts-in-archive-pages/ , and on the center column of themes, look at note 4 which explains that with those templates you can have the categories/archives pages show only a title with a little easy trickery.

5. wildrose965
   Member
   Jul 31, 2009, 4:32 AM

   Maybe I'm not understanding the question, but I'm thinking of trying this:

   I put a category widget into my sidebar. When I select a certain category - eg. "writing" - I get a subpage called http://cherrytart.wordpress.com/category/writing.

   Could I not now make a widget in the sidebar (potentially even a hyperlinked image), and make it link to this page? Then I could eliminate the official category widget and the page would be automatically updated as I add posts.

   Will that work? It's certainly not short code, but it might be neat.

   http://cherrytart.wordpress.com

6. thesacredpath
   Member
   Jul 31, 2009, 4:37 AM

   Yes, that will work wildrose, but the original poster wanted to have an introductory paragraph or two at the top of each category page, and that is not possible at this time.

7. wildrose965
   Member
   Jul 31, 2009, 4:39 AM

   Oh, I see. That makes sense. Thanks for the answer.

8. johnlvs2run
   Member
   Jul 31, 2009, 5:55 AM

   Wildrose, that's a great suggestion thanks.

   I like your bright orange avatar and your blog. :)

9. wildrose965
   Member
   Jul 31, 2009, 1:08 PM

   @johnlvs2run, thanks! Kind of you to say so.

10. sylwiaofwarsaw
    Member
    Jul 31, 2009, 9:15 PM

    I'd love a categories option shortcode!

11. johnlvs2run
    Member
    Aug 1, 2009, 12:11 AM

    you're very welcome, wildrose.

    I get a subpage called http://cherrytart.wordpress.com/category/writing.
    
    Could I not now make a widget in the sidebar (potentially even a hyperlinked image), and make it link to this page?

    You can also make a tag widget as follows:

    http://ninatoastmasters.wordpress.com/tag/nina-toastmasters/

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