akb

Does anyone know if the update_post_caches() was somehow changed to let two get_posts co-exist on the same page? If not, could this be worked around by off-loading each loop into an include file or would that still double (or triple) the category entries?

Color me confused. You all probably answered my questions, above, but I guess I do not understand the answers. I am still not getting it.
I understand that the “Page” can be either static or not. From what I have read here and elsewhere, it appears that the way to make it non-static is to have a plug-in so it will run the PHP. Yes? No? So that means if I want to have a loop (for instance if I want to make a categorized list of posts), I have to use a plug-in. Did not know that. Ok. Actually, from above, I am not sure that is correct.
Besides that, I know I am not doing something right, because even if I put static content on the Page and click on the link created by wp_list_pages();, all I get is what would have been on the index page. Since the only other piece that can be set on the Manage Pages page is the pop-up for Page Template which on my install says “default template”, I suspect my problem must lie there. Unfortunately, I do not know what to do or how to change that. Am I supposed to put something in the code of my index.php as a “hook” for whatever I have put into the Page? Do I need to create a new template somehow?
In reference to the above discussion, I tried to create a template by copying my index.php, excising The Loops, and saving it as page.php in my /wp-content subdirectory. As occurred with Podz, nothing changed in the templates pop-up. What did happen is that clicking on the wp_list_pages link gave me the white screen of death. I went further and excised _everything_ from the page.php and still got the white screen. When I changed the name of the page.php file to .phps, the link took me to a copy of the front page output.
In any event, would someone please explain Pages to me using little words? This is starting to get frustrating.

Uh, did this issue get addressed last week? I d-loaded the Mon, Oct 25 nightly and installed it in a separate directory, but it is doing the same thing. If it was addressed, it was not fixed. If it was not addressed, is there any further time-table for it?

Ok. I also tested the wp_list_pages() in my index to see what would happen.
Good, it worked. I also was presented with a 1 item list of Pages. Now comes the odd part. I clicked on the link but although I put something different on the Page (the only thing I put in was <? echo ("Hello World"); ?>), it came up as though it was simply loading the index.php file. No Hello World or the PHP code.
I do not know if it is of any note, but I edited the permalink structure to the pattern:
/archives/%post_id%/%postname%
but the address {site}/archives/{pagename} gives a 404.
How is one supposed to access these Pages?

Ah. So these are static pages. A few questions, then:
Can they contain things like The Loop or is that impermissible?
If I have placed the html for my sidebar, etc in my index page, rather than including it from an outside file, if I want them to appear on this page I suppose I have to recopy it. (Hmmm… some of it is dynamic and generated by WP).

After copying the code (as is) to a text file and uploading it to the plugins subdirectory (WP-v.1.3-a4), I activated the plug. I then had to go to the server and remove the file from the plug subdirectory because it broke the plugins page (blank screen). Once removed from subdirectory everything worked normally again. Because I was unable to turn the plug off, if I put the plug back in the subdirectory, the plugins page breaks again.
I am by no means a PHP expert, but I gave the code a look anyway. Nothing stood out for me.
Is anyone using this plug with v.1.3-a4?

Actually, if you check the output from the second get_posts loop, you will notice that the first 3 items are repeating three times. I suspect it is because the default number of posts per page is set to 10. I have no idea what the update_post_caches() might do, but there seem to be three loops, not just the two that are displayed on this page.
1 – the default loop (set to 10)
2 – the first get_posts loop (with date, title, excerpt, categories, etc) (set to 3)
3 – the second get_posts loop (with just title, date & categories) (set to 15, but I only have 14)

do you mean that it loads properly with the URL reads
/wordpress/index.php?p=#comments
but does not if you leave out the /wordpress?
Although I *am* a newbie, I will hazard a guess that your index.php is installed in a /wordpress subdirectory. Ok, that may be too obvious and not the answer you are looking for. Is the index.php working if you simply type that in for a URL without the /wordpress preceeding it? Have you done some sort of redirect using — I don’t know — .htaccess or something similar? Are there any other idiosyncracies to your set-up?

I have noticed that there are quite a few posts by people asking for help on how to accomplish various tasks within WordPress that are going unanswered. It is not like those posts are even getting a RTFM response (but then the manual – to the extent it exists – is rather fragmented). I used Movable Type and moved from it partly because I was more comfortable playing with PHP than Perl (and uncomfortable trying to integrate the two) but more because many of the people on-line that I was relying upon for support were abandoning the platform and official support for the free version was spotty/unavailable.
On this forum, I have not gotten any responses to my requests for help (except for ‘wm’, above, which was not really a direct response to my question). Any help that I have received has been from direct contact with plug-in makers. Some of them have noted that the functionality I was requesting is already built into WordPress. Who knew?
One of the issues is that each of the packaged platforms for weblogs is a slightly different paradigm and (even where they are similar) uses different tags and tag structures. It is tough to get a handle on the way these things work. Since there is not a complete manual that ties all the pieces together, it is quite difficult to implement.
Similarly (while I am ranting), the default index.php, due to its formatting, does little to help instruct by example. Might I suggest that many of the facets that belong in the manual also belong (commented) in the index with options noted.
As for my original question, I still do not know what to do so that my top-level categories will always appear in the vertical list but the children only when their top-level category is selected.