Kathy_P

In regard to the very first question of the very first post, I have to say that even after reading about Pages in the Codex, I had trouble “getting” how Pages functioned in WordPress. I kept confusing Templates and Pages; I couldn’t see how they were different. Finally, something my son said made the light go on for me. He said that “a Page is just a hacked-up post.” True, a Page is not a post, but it does use a modified form of The Loop to display what you type in Write Page or Manage Pages. It will not be sort or organized by date or category. It will be organized by the Page/SubPage structure you develop as you write Pages. But Pages are fetched by WordPress in a similar manner to Posts, and are slapped into the template you design for them (Custom Template) , or, if you didn’t design one, it will use the Page Template, and if that isn’t there, it will use the Main Template. Once I envisioned myself typing a Post that didn’t have a date, comments, or trackback, I saw how the Template worked in connection with the Page.

For anyone else that wants to know, the Description field in the Links Manager is 256 characters long.

I see you are right. Rats. What would it take to hack the code? Why would you be able to sort by something you can’t display? I guess I will just have to create static pages and ignore the Links Manager for now. Too bad–it seems made for my situation.

There isn’t a specific page in the Template Hierarchy related to Links, though I have seen a links.php in some themes. Perhaps I need to use a query-based template? But I feel like I’m getting in over my head when they start talking about plug-in hooks and such. I will go look at a links.php file in one of the other themes to see if it can teach me anything. Maybe with some tweaking I can apply what you did with Categories to Links. And if that doesn’t help, I’ll follow your advice and re-submit the question.

Thanks for stopping by a second time. A lot of people do “try to put a square peg in the round hole” because they’re trying to understand something they really don’t have a background for. But I have seen other threads on this forum where it really did seem like the poster hadn’t even tried to figure it out for themselves first. On the hand, I have had people quote me “chapter and verse” from the Codex as if I hadn’t read it, when really they didn’t understand my question. See, for example, this thread: https://www.ads-software.com/support/topic.php?id=30232#post-170964

Thank you for responding to my questions, Manzabar. I had already read that section of the Codex and was hoping for further clarification. Both the Description and the Notes of a link can be displayed using parameters for the <?php get_links; ?> Template Tag. I am trying to figure out if there’s any advantage to displaying one or the other, if I am trying to create an annotated directory of links. For example, could I insert the following in either Description or Notes and have it rendered correctly by the template tag:
<p>Another good source of information on cold climate gardening. Their online publications catalog is not organized for easy perusal, I'm afraid. <i><b>Ornamental Grasses for Cold Climates</b></i> is located under the Landscaping - Plant Selection. <i><b>Roses for the North</b></i> is under Flowers - Culture. It is probably better to use the search engine provided if you have a specific topic in mind, because it was easier to browse under their previous organization. Some of their more popular titles have free excerpts available for download, so it's worth taking the time to see what they've got.</p>
This is typical of what I have on my current website. Is there too much text for the Description or Notes field? Will the html code “show,” or will it be rendered properly? Perhaps no one knows, and I will just have to experiment. But I was hoping someone with an intimate knowledge of WordPress would be able to shed some light on these questions.

Lorelle, thank you so much for taking the time to answer me in depth. I’m afraid I didn’t make myself clear. The categories I am talking about are Link categories, not post categories. I did use the word subcategories, but I was referring to how they were organized on my current website. Since Links don’t seem to provide for subcategories, I think (but am not certain) I will have to give them all prefixes of ccg, ctg, and ny to distinguish them.

I am sure I will not be using The Loop, as I will not be using posts. I know I will be using the Template Tag <?php get_links ?> with several of its parameters. I’m just not sure how to set this tag up in the context of Pages and subPages, using one or more templates.

I did look at your site, and I might do “something more” with my post categories in the future. But right now I’m interested in getting my current website ported over to WordPress, and a good deal of my website is merely an annotated directory of links.

So, you’re saying that when you’re logged in as a standard user, the word “Login” in your sidebar doesn’t change to “Logout”? Do you refresh the page? Also, when you are signed in as a standard user, what permission level are you at?

Ankaisa, I see that yours works. Did you comment things out, or delete them? Or did you just squeeze the bloglines code in? And I am sorry for the duplicate posts, but I can’t edit them out, either.

When you configured your Bloglines blogroll, did you specify target=_blank? I did, and I think that is part of the problem. Also, some of the commenting I did was not closed correctly. I ran my blog through the xml validator and I’m still fixing the problems. After I fix all the problems and take out the target=_blank, I’ll report back. It may just be these errors that keep IE from rendering it.

When you configured your Bloglines blogroll, did you specify target=_blank? I did, and I think that is part of the problem. Also, some of the commenting I did was not closed correctly. I ran my blog through the xml validator and I’m still fixing the problems. After I fix all the problems and take out the target=_blank, I’ll report back. It may just be these errors that keep IE from rendering it.

When you configured your Bloglines blogroll, did you specify target=_blank? I did, and I think that is part of the problem. Also, some of the commenting I did was not closed correctly. I ran my blog through the xml validator and I’m still fixing the problems. After I fix all the problems and take out the target=_blank, I’ll report back. It may just be these errors that keep IE from rendering it.

@macmanx, I will agree with you on little purpose. I am vulnerable to repetitive stress injuries in my hand and arm, so anything that saves me keystrokes is a good thing. The theme manager plugin also makes it possible to add themes when at a public computer, with no access to ftp. And it enables you to delete themes from within WordPress, which is also a good thing, otherwise it would be a pain in the neck to get them out of there. But if I had known what I know now, about the themes getting uploaded as nobody’s, I wouldn’t have used the theme manager plugin, as it ultimately cost me more keystrokes than it saved.
@joni, after I had already started working with the Random Image theme, I went back to the contest site and saw several of your themes that I liked. Eventually I hope to figure out how to use the Theme Switcher plugin and let my readers pick!

“In the end, it’s easier to keep your own and not rely on 3rd party services” If all’s you’re doing is keeping a blogroll, the links management in WordPress is great, and I agree, it’s best not to rely on third party services. But by using the Bloglines blogroll on my current MT blog, I’ve been able to do 2 things with one copy-and-paste: 1) add a feed to my Bloglines account, and 2) add the same to my blogroll. Before I used the Bloglines blogroll, I would often do #1 and forget to do #2.

What really puzzles me is why it won’t work with IE in WordPress when it did work with IE before. I merely commented out the Blogroll list that was in sidebar.php before inserting the Bloglines code. Is IE picky about commenting out? Look at this page in Firefox and IE–do you see a difference? https://www.coldclimategardening.com/index.php

I am having a problem that is related to changing permissions. I have been using the WordPress Theme Manager plugin, which I got from here https://www.wp-plugins.net/ in the Admin category. As it turns out, this plugin uploads files to one’s server using the “nobody” user id. Consequently, I can’t delete, edit, copy, change permissions, or otherwise modify these files via SmartFTP or the File Manager in Cpanel. I can edit the files in WordPress, however. I had wanted to set up my blog with Mike Cohen’s Random Image theme, and had a bunch of my images ready to upload and copy over the images that came with the theme. I can’t do this, because I’m not “nobody.” Is there a command line, or a utility, or a feature of SmartFTP that I’m not aware of, that will enable you to change the user id?

By the way, the tutorial podz wrote is now here: https://www.tamba2.org.uk/wordpress/ftp/