Sean

Thanks for that input tollie – that worked for me as well (I also have my blog in a directory).

Thanks alphaoide:)

I just tried putting my blog in tables, and it seemed to work. The WordPress functions remained intact.

As long as you keep your post loop in one piece (everything between <?php if (have_posts())... and <?php endif; ?>) it should be ok.

I think the reason most people don’t use tables is because it’s often difficult to create a design that is consistent across browsers.

Ok thanks. I don’t suppose there’s a workaround? (other than showing all posts in the category on the one page – which for me might be actually be the best option…)

Thank you very much for your help.

Will this work across pages? That is, will the first post on the next page end up being #1 again?

Thanks – I had no idea. Would it be possible for a script like the one above to create a cache periodically?

Would it be possible to create a container div that has the property height: auto and the background you want (with background-repeat: repeat-y as you’re aware) and then floating your content and sidebar in it (both with transparent backgrounds)?

That way you wouldn’t have to worry about what’s above or below the container div, so you could place the header and footer outside or use clear: both.

Sorry if I’m just telling you stuff you already know and don’t need to hear again. You seem to have explored most options already.

Good luck!

Thank you very much. That’s exactly what I need.

Are MagpieRSS functions built into WordPress?

Re: IE 7

The faux columns aren’t really a hack per se. As long as your css elements are positioned correctly I can’t see how a new brower would cause them to stop working.

(Was that what you were talking about?)

Re: Tabled Layout

I haven’t used a tabled WP layout but I guess it would look something like this (for a 2 column layout with the sidebar on the right):

<table border="0" margin="0" padding="0">
<tr>
<td>
// Header code here
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td // Background for main body here>
// Main body code here
</td>
<td // Background for sidebar here>
// Sidebar code here
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
// Footer code here
</td>
</tr>
</table>

If the sidebar becomes longer than the content, the height of the content should stretch to match that of the sidebar.

(BTW is there a way to preserve tabs in code you paste here?)

If you want to put archives on one side and categories on the other, you can do so easily by finding and moving the two lines of code (most likely in sidebar.php) that look like this:

<?php wp_get_archives(''); ?>

for archives and

<?php wp_list_cats(''); ?>

for categories.

If you mean put some categories on one side but other categories on the other, we have the same problem and I haven’t had luck with a solution so far. I know there are plug-ins which can achieve this, but personally I’d rather not resort to one.

I would like to know how to split the category list as well.

I had a similar issue with columns, and initially didn’t like the idea of faux columns. But without tables (of which I want to have none in my html) I couldn’t find a way to work around the difference in height without specifying a min-height for the element containing my content. I warmed to the idea of faux columns and found it worked like a charm.

The theme you’ve linked to seems to be absolutely positioned anyway, so I would recommend this method. You can always layer images to create the illusion of whatever edge you would like at the top and bottom as well.

ladydelaluna,
I’m not sure if this is the kind of thing you were looking for, but the plugin I mentioned in the older thread which was firstRSS also has a ‘sideRSS’ component which lets you feed RSS into the sidebar. I use it myself and found it very useful and easy to customise.

As for the scrolling marquee I suspect that would involve wrapping some javascript around the list produced by the plugin. I know nothing about javascript though, so I can’t say I’m sure it would work.

After digging further I found this thread which solved the problem. It was in fact exceedingly simple – I was ‘echo’ing the wrong php variable. It should have been

<?php echo $s; ?>

I realise this post is 6 months old, but in case someone stumbles on it with a similar question – you can use scripts like firstRSS to import RSS feeds into WordPress. There are of course many other options, but I found this one easiest.

It doesn’t, however, show the RSS entries as individual posts. I believe I read of a plugin or script that did this but can’t find it at the moment.