1.5 Page Functionality Categories

Points I can make about your thoughts are:

1. A product in beta is not necessarily prepped for major changes to functionality.
2. What you may find a useful feature, others may see as nothing more than bloat.
3. A tool which does little by default but allows you to modify to your interests is a far more powerful one.
4. #3 can be difficult for end users, agreed, but there’s always a compromise between built-in functionality and adaptability.
5. There’s a difference between asking developers to listen, and asking them to agree with you. (I’m not saying you are, but never hurts to point out.)
6. I’ve also worked with coders, and one thing I’ve seen work with them is making suggestions that do not go against the specific purpose of a feature already implemented. Pages in 1.5 were intended for “static” content. Using it to list posts in a specific category is an interesting idea, but not what it was meant for. Keep that in mind if any developers reply.

Of course, like all opinions mine are just that: opinions.

I started thinking the same way, that I could have each category on its own “page”. I just didn’t understand the page concept. This is because it is in beta and a lot of us are playing where most people don’t get to play, in the sandbox of innovation as it is happening rather than after it has been figured out and all the documentation and instructions have been written.

WP’s ability to “self-generate” a category page makes the Page feature useless as a specific category page. Using the Page feature as a static page, I now understand this much better. Examples would be the About page, Contact Us, a Sign up page, and things like that. This is brilliant.

It took me a while to get my head around the differences in the purpose. Those of us learning about php and databases are still coming from a world where every page is a page and one page doesn’t have the capbility of being many pages.

Thanks for the feedback. I appreciate it.

Kafkaesqui; Re #1 I agree. I am more curious and excited at this stage, but if you don’t ask you don’t get – who knows a lead developer might see this and implement it because it is such a good idea. Re #3 I totally agree. Re # 6 I had no idea what its intended purpose is, are you absolutely sure that it is only intended for static pages? In which case would it be possible to make a plug-in that achieved this. I think that sometimes it takes a stranger like me to point out other possibilities. I’m an entrepreneur, its what I’m good at. So in response I would say to anybody out there on the WP team to keep an open mind.

Lorelle; like you pointed out, pages are brilliant for static pages. But why limit it to only static pages. If you could do something like I have suggested then why not. I have given a real example of it being useful in a live website, and given the millions of websites online I cant possibly be the only one who would find this useful. I like the way you put it “to generate a page from a category”. This is cool functionality at the very least.

To both of you. Thanks again :))

Soooo who’s going to do it then, is it going to be 1.5/6 functionality or will it just become a plugin ??

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for life.

Teach yourself to fish. ??

i was also interested in using pages to display dynamic content in this exact way, a news-site of sorts. it would seem that a possible work round might envole using a theme for the page. i’m not sure if this is true as i’m also a novice, but it suggests it in the wiki as the theme can include php. also there are plugins for including php in a page, but again i don’t know if they work – it’s all in the wiki. i can’t get my meathod to work though – possible file structure issue(?), as the theme trys to call a function that’s not in it’s folder?But really i know nothing about php as my previous host didn’t support it.

i’m now talking gibberish so i’ll be quiet.

There is consistent and endemic confusion among new users about the proper application and useage of the word *page*. The page feature in WP is for static content. God knows there has been endless demands for it for ages and the devs responded brilliantly. The type of dynamic functionality that TOP requires can easily be delivered by using alternative main templates(we might use the word views to describe it) with additional tag editing. I havent yet seen anything which cant be done. What TOP is describing is a single cat. No more. I am tempted to say that there is a Flaming Good Manual.

Just a thought, and probably wrong, but what is wrong with just linking to …/archives/category/whatever ? and manging it through the links manager. On my blog that would seem a simple way to get a ‘page’ that lists just one category. I know the URI isn’t as nice, but it is still comprehesible.

Using our links to link internally to our own stuff is a very powerful and greatly underused technique. IMHO.