FAQ Categories Issues

I am working on an update right now and will address these issues with that. I plan to release the update within a few days.

To answer your questions:

1. You can hide the category links (formerly “posted in”, now “category/categories”) and the tags together by adding some custom CSS:
.qafp-faq-meta{display:none;}

If that doesn’t work you can try:
.qafp-faq-meta{display:none !important;}

2. Each individual category page only shows the FAQs in that category. I am not seeing any other categories listed on single category pages.

3. There is no way to edit category pages, as you would regular pages. Categories behave just like post categories.

4. I tested this as a subscriber and a guest and did not get any 404 errors.

Without being able to visit your site and look for myself there is really nothing I can do, since I am not experiencing the problems that you are. Sorry I could not offer more assistance.

Thank you for the prompt reply; I’m looking forward to checking out the new version.

1. Adding .qafp-faq-meta{display:none;} in the css/q-a-foucs-plus.min.css file, as you suggested indeed removed the category links from the FAQ pages; thanks.

2. My category pages still display all FAQs, by category, and the page title is also the same as that of the FAQs homepage.
Could this be related to the fact that I’m using a custom FAQs page (which I defined as the “FAQ homepage” in the plugin settings)? I didn’t test using the default FAQs homepage. Also, my custom homepage is not directly under the root site directory (if this matters?).
Or could it be related to the WP version that I’m currently using — which is v3.3.2?
(Note: The categories division itself, using the qaftp shortcode with the $cat attribute, works well; the problem is that the specific category pages are identical to the FAQs homepage and display all categories.)

3. If I can’t edit the auto-generated category pages, can I limit the access permissions to these pages?

4. I found that the 404 error for non-admin users was the result of the FAQs homepage being defined as a draft page; when I publish this page publicly the related category pages are indeed visible to all site visitors. However, I would actually like to limit access to these pages (see Q.3), especially seeing as currently these pages in my site contain all the FAQ categories (see Q.2; I verified that this is also true when the FAQs homepage is published and not saved as a draft).

5. As you are about to release a new version, please note that the following plugin Settings options seemed to have no effect in my tests: “Show category links”, “Show number of entries”, “Search box position”, “Horizontal rule below answers”.
Regarding the search box, when I first defined the FAQs page I did see the search box, but now it doesn’t appear regardless of the value I select for the related settings option; I think perhaps when I saw it I wasn’t using a custom FAQs homepage yet.

Thanks again,
Sharon

Putting the CSS in there means that it will be overwritten when the program is updated. You should add it to your theme’s custom CSS, or the new WordPress CSS options so that the setting is not lost when you update the plugin.

A lot of these problems may have to do with version 3.3.2. Have you considered updating and trying it on the current version of WordPress?

I will create a custom CSS file as you suggested.

We are indeed planning to upgrade the WP version on our company site, but unfortunately we’re not able to do this quite yet.

I think the 3.0 is left over from the old version. I actually started working on it at a much later version and never thought to test it with older versions of WP. So some of the changes I made may have broken it for older versions. Sorry about that. You could always use the old Q & A for now and then upgrade that to Focus Plus when you update WP.

If I can’t expedite the WP version upgrade in our company, maybe I’ll try the old plugin version. Alternatively, seeing as the main issue for me is currently the incorrect category pages being visible to all users, perhaps I’ll just redirect these pages to my own custom pages.

I’ll update you if and when we upgrade the WP version; thanks again for your prompt responses.

The only reason I can think of that would cause all of the category pages to show together would be is if the categories all have one category set as the parent category in the category settings. Make sure it is set to “no parent”.

The categories indeed have the same root parent; eliminating the parent category didn’t resolve the problem, but I ultimately identified the source of the problem: In my FAQs homepage I had used qafp shortcodes with the $cat attribute set to a different category in each call; when I modified the homepage to call only [qafp limit="-1"], most of the issues I had previously reported were resolved: The category pages now display only the FAQs of the relevant category, and the FAQs search box, number of entries in each category, and category links are displayed in the homepage when the relevant Settings option is selected. (Note that the “Show permalinks” and “Horizontal rule below answers” Global Options Settings options still have no effect.) I reread the plugin’s documentation, and I now understand that the plugin requires that the FAQs homepage use the qafp shortcode without the $cat or $tag attributes.

I then went back and defined a parent category for my current FAQ categories, and things still worked — so the use of a parent category wasn’t related to the problems. However, this didn’t quite yield the results that I wanted, because the parent-category FAQs were displayed at the end of the FAQs page, repeating all the FAQs that were already listed for the child categories (although the number of entries for this category was 0 …). My initial implementation, which used only category shortcodes, would have bypassed this issue, because I didn’t add a shortcode call for the root parent category, but apparently this implementation isn’t supported in the FAQs homepage.

The reason for my original implementation is that I had hoped to use the plugin to create two separate set of “FAQs”: A page that contains a list of FAQs for one of our products, and separate technical document pages (for the same product) with related category pages that link to the technical document pages; I have different requirements for each group and I don’t want to mix them. Also, in the future we may want to create separate FAQs for other product lines on our site, and I would prefer to have separate FAQ pages for each product and not group them all on one page.
I guess a possible solution (with the current plugin constraints) would be to make the FAQs homepage inaccessible to site visitors, and create custom FAQs and category pages that use the qafp shortcodes with the $cat attribute.

I guess a possible solution (with the current plugin constraints) would be to make the FAQs homepage inaccessible to site visitors, and create custom FAQs and category pages that use the qafp shortcodes with the $cat attribute.

You could create a menu, or page that has links to the individual categories (if I am understanding you correctly).

You also do not have to use the [qafp] shorcode on the FAQ page. You can use several [qafp cat=] codes on the FAQ page, like:

[qafp cat=dogs]
[qafp cat=cats]
[qafp cat=rodents]
[qafp cat=primates]

I hope this helps some.

You also do not have to use the [qafp] shorcode on the FAQ page. You can use several [qafp cat=] codes on the FAQ page …

To my understanding this is true for custom FAQ pages that I may create, but not for the page that I specify as the FAQ homepage in the plugin settings, unless I don’t plan to use the auto-generated category pages (because as my tests showed, when using [qafp cat="] in the FAQ homepage the category pages contain all the FAQs).
I will definitely try the custom pages solution.

Would you ever consider modifying the plugin to support the creation of multiple FAQ groups (with different settings) — allowing, e.g., for the individual FAQ pages to be created in different locations in the site tree?

Thanks again for all your help,
Sharon

Custom pages still have to be specified as the FAQ page. That is how I have always used it. The main difference is that the plugin automatically creates the page and inserts the shortcode when you use the default page option. You should still be able to edit, or add anything you like to the auto generated page, since it is no different than a custom page. Just look for the “faqs” page in your WP pages list, or go to yoursite.com/faqs and edit it. Some experimentation with the different options should get you the effect you desire. It won’t hurt to try an auto generated page and edit that and then switch to a custom one to compare. Just remember to manually add the custom FAQ page slug in the FAQ homepage setting.

This discussion made me consider adding support for multiple FAQs, but that would require much more work than I will have time to do for quite a while. In the meantime, if I think of a way to implement that idea without rewriting the entire plugin I will try to do so.

Here is a possible solution for you:

1. Create a new category. For now call it: “main category”.
2. Create a new FAQ called “subcategory” and add it to “main category”.
3. Add the qafp shortcode to the “subcategory” FAQ, like: qafp cat=”whatever-category-has-questions”.

Basically that is nesting a FAQ inside of a FAQ. It should look like:

Main Category
>Title of Subcategory FAQ
>>Title of Whatever Category Has Questions
>>>Questions

Never mind. That is not working right.