cousinagam

I have upgraded to 2.1.3, and this problem seems to have disappeared. I’ll run with it for a week or two, and if the problem doesn’t reappear, I’ll mark this thread as resolved.

Wish me luck.

Otto42,

I used your format (include=2,3=4), but I’m still getting the children (e.g., children of 4) listed in the sidebar.

Well, list-cats did not work. However, I found something that does for me.
(Meaning, something that lets me show only categories 2, 3, and 4 in the sidebar, not their children.)
It’s kludgy but it works.

1. I edited the sidebar to have a text label for the word “Categories” (e.g., <h2>Categories</h2> )
2. I added <ul><li> below that
3. I entered the hyperlink for Category 2, with a text label for the category’s name (“Stories”)
4. I repeated that for the next two categories I want to have in the sidebar
5. I closed the list ( </ul> )

As I say, it’s kludgy, but it works just fine.

Just an update… poking around the Codex, I get the impression that 2.1x’s changes mean I can’t get wp_list_categories to do what I want (e.g., show only categories 2, 3, and 4 in the sidebar, <i>without</i> showing their children.

A workaround came to me in the dentist’s office:

I added hyperlinks in the sidebar for the three category-specific pages. I entered a text label of “Categories” and under it put links to category-2.php, category-3.php, and category-4.php

Works just fine.

Using “exclude” is fine if you don’t have many categories to exclude. However, I have over 100 categories, and I want the sidebar to show only three of them. All the others are children of those three.

Since the site is full of family stories, and one of the main categories is “Characters” (people in the stories), there are both figuratively and literally a lot of children. I don’t need all those people cluttering up the sidebar.

I’m going to try falling back to list_cats, though I’m not optimistic.

In the meantime I hope someone will add the highly useful “no children” feature to list_categories.

I’m still puzzled. I tried just now to add a link, but couldn’t. I wondered if that was because I was using Firefox with multiple tabs.

Started a new browser, only one tab, went in to write a new post. Bingo, I could add links.

It’s like one of those intermittent problems with your car, the kind that you can’t reproduce when you take it into the shop.

Well, I got rid of the four extensions I had. I can get the add-a-link popup in Blog 1, but not in Blog 2. So maybe the problem is theme-related?

(I can see I need to make a little log sheet and keep it near the keyboard, to document what I was doing and what the environment was like…)

Blog 1 uses the Simpla theme. Blog 2 uses MistyLook. I’ll see if Sadish (creator of MistyLook) has had any feedback on this problem.

HandySolo:

Sorry, I should have been clearer.

Yes, I type the text first, then highlight. Usually the button appears active at that point, but (as I checked just now) clicking it has no effect in Firefox. (In IE just now, I did get the pop-up.)

I usually use Firefox, and the pop-up failure had been intermittent. It’s gotten to be nearly constant.

Genolus,

Seeing the xml code in a browser (like Firefox) is a good sign. Before you removed “feed:” I’ll bet your browser didn’t know what to do with the RSS link. Now it displays the xml, which at least tells you you seem to have the right code.

I have not used a feed reader per se, but another way people use the RSS link or button is to copy the link for the feed and then paste it into an aggregator like NetVibes (see netvibes.com).

NetVibes aggregates (gathers) information about any number of feeds and displays them in an easy-to-manage window.

Aha!

The answer was (apparently) my own cut and paste error.

I seem to have pasted an extraneous wp_list_cats in my category.php file, when I only need it in my category-3.php (storytellers) and category-4.php (characters) files.

Bit by bit I’m learning to read this stuff…

Is there a possible variation on this solution that might help me with something I’d like to do?

I have a blog that doesn’t have new posts most days, and so I have a static page as the main page for the site (i.e., no loop). The posts themselves are stories (it’s a family-story site); I use categories like “storyteller” and “character” (and have a subcat for each person who’s a storyteller or a character).

I’d like to modify my current static front page. One thought is to show an excerpt from the most recent post (or most recent X posts).

I already have a latest-post plugin in the sidebar, but it’d be good to have something like a mini-loop on the static front page.

Any suggestions?

The site: https://www.cousinagamfhein.net

Varonika:

On my site, I’m using a random-quote plugin: https://www.zombierobot.com/wp-quotes/

And also a WordPress backup plugin: https://www.skippy.net/blog/plugins/

I mention these because, as you say, it’s very easy to try them out. I am so impressed by the people who build test, test them, and make them available.

Thank you, Kafkaesqui…

Sometimes you just have to know WHERE in the codex…