Category page to display list of posts only

if you have a category.php in the themes folder, the look of the category pages are defined here… The template tags called inside the loop (eg. <?php the_content(); ?> = the post content) defines what is shown of the posts.. That means, if you remove the template tag the_content(); from category.php, no post content is showed – you want to do that for more than this template tag (eg. the_time(); etc).. Take a look at the codex (https://codex.www.ads-software.com/template_tags) for a list of template tags.

my theme doesn’t seem to have a category page. When I click a category, I have this link: https://www.thecowgoddess.com/wordpress/?cat=1

So how can I get my category display to display lists instead of posts?

If you don’t have it – just create one. Save your archive.php as category.php or category-XX.php (where XX = ID of category) and you are good to go.
More: Category_Templates and Template_Hierarchy.

I’m stuck again! I did make a category page, but I’m lost as to how to get the categories to display! At this moment, nothing displays at all. I cloned the category page from the default template. I’m sure I’m missing a step, or something.

https://www.thecowgoddess.com/wordpress/?cat=15

What is the “default template”?
(I’ve said: save your archive.php as category.php…)

I did that, and now I get the following error when I try to access a category:

Archive for the ‘2004’ Category
Fatal error: Call to undefined function: cat_header_link() in C:\Domains\thecowgoddess.com\wwwroot\wordpress\wp-content\themes\hathor\category.php on line 9

There is no cat_header_link function in WP.
Where did you get that?

I got this file directly out of the theme folder “default” that came with my wordpress install. I am using a different theme, so I’ve never seen this file before.

OK, I went to a totally clean WOrdpress folder and found the file, now I can get the page to display, except that what I want is for the posts to show up just as a list of titles and not as one post at a time.

To be honest, I am confused.
I just searched the whole “default” theme directory on a very fresh download and there is no such thing as
cat_header_link()
That must come from your own code…

OK, you have posted while I was searching ??
1. How many posts – that’s defined in your admin > Options > Reading
1a. If you want different number of posts in different views, use a plugin:
https://mattread.com/archives/2006/01/custom-query-string-27/
2. If you want only titles, you should edit your category template and remove the_content tag and/or anything you don’t need.

we must have x-posted. I don’t know where that code came from, you were right. Now I’m at the task of making the categories display links to posts instead of the posts themselves.

never mind! I’m so sorry I really should have spent more time nivestigating before I posted here again. I think I have figured it out.

thank you so, so much.

Just wanted to say thanks mollysummer, for asking the question, and moshu, of course for answering it!

This was exactly what I wanted to do, and you helped me accomplish that.

Even though the question didn’t get fully resolved I was able to go off of your advice Moshu.

Just a note for others wanting to do this out there:

Change the archive.php to category.php then edit the category.php to accomplish what you want. For just links, edit out the ” <?php the_content(); ?> = the post content) ” stuff as moshu stated.

Also, note that the links you click on to go to the Post page will use single.php for its template (default theme)
. Further editing of single.php will give you control over how each individual post page will look.

And I also implemented the “other posts from cat” plugin by aliester ( dagondesign.com )
to further increase navigability.

Hope this helps.

Hi all,
Thank you! Great post!
Based here I’ve created a template that display a custom category page.
I’m having the following problem:
I had have set up in the WP control panel a maximum of 5 posts displaying in the Blog’s pages.
I can’t figure out how to show all posts in the custom page instead of the default 5 last posts.
I’m using a category-#.php template.
The custom page showing 5 posts (there is 25 and increasing!) is hosted at: https://www.maujor.com/blog/category/todas

Many thanks for any help