Expand your Navigation using category & author archives | better usability | feng shui electronica

Include archives in the basic User Interface of your website. One more step to the perfect CMS. There are a few ways to go about this:

You can choose a ready-made theme, code it into your main navigation, or create a sub-nav.

Choosing a Theme

Solution 1: Choose a theme with category navigation built in.

ie:

Jstheme

You can find more themes online at the WordPress theme database.

Getting Dirty in the Code

If you can't find a theme you like that comes with category navigation, or you want category navigation in the theme you already have, you can code it in pretty easily.

Solution 2: Code in your categories with the WordPress template tag:

<?php wp_list_categories(); ?>

This will list all the categories.

You can control which categories you display by adding parameters like this:

fn<?php wp_list_categories('orderby=name&include=3,5,9,16'); ?>

To find the category ID (#'s listed above), just log in to your Dashboard >> Categories. Hover over the name of the category you want and the link in the bottom of your browser will have a number at the very end of it, that is the category ID of the category you are hovering over. More on the wp-list-category tag {link}.

You can exclude categories by using the exclude parameter:

<?php wp_list_categories('exclude=10'); ?>

Solution 3: Code in individual links that would look something like this:

<li><a href="http://yourdomain.com/category/category-name" title="category-name">Category Name</a></li>

1. Create the categories you want to use in your main navigation.

ie: I use the categories "Web Portfolio" & "Blog" on my website to make it easy to distinguish between what is what. A link to my "Web Portfolio" category brings users to the Archives of everything posted in "Web Portfolio." This allows my readers or potential clients to easily find my previous work, without having to search through archives or page by page through my blog. While I've changed the "Uncategorized" category to Blog. Everything I post gets posted in "Blog" first. So when users follow my "Blog" link in my main navigation, they are taken my main archives, which includes all my posts, listed by date.

2. Make sure you find their exact url

ie: http://yourdomain.com/category/blog

3. Through FTP, find your main navigation code. (Most themes are coded with the Main Navigation in the file header.php but I've seen them elsewhere, including the sidebar.php)

Your theme probably has code that looks something like this:

<?php wp_list_pages(); ?>

-or-

<ul>
<li><a href="<?php echo get_option('home'); ?>/">Home</a></li>
<?php wp_list_pages('sort_column=menu_order&title_li='); ?>
</ul>

4. Before or after your wp-list-pages tag, add your list-item(s) linking to the archive page of the category(ies) you wish to incorporate

ie:

<?php wp-list-category('orderby=name&include=3,5,9,16'); ?>

so you might see something like this:

<div id="something">
<ul>
<li><a href="<?php echo get_option('home'); ?>/">Home</a></li>
<?php wp_list_pages('sort_column=menu_order&title_li='); ?>
<?php wp-list-category('orderby=name&include=3,5,9,16'); ?>
</ul>
</div>

-or-

<li><a href="http://yourdomain.com/category/category-name" title="category-name">Category Name</a></li>

5.You do not need the "Home" link if you do not want, it's helpful for UI, but not necessary. If you include the "Home" link, your final code will look something like this:

<ul>
<li><a href="<?php echo get_option('home'); ?>/">Home</a></li>
<?php wp_list_pages('sort_column=menu_order&title_li='); ?>
<li><a href="http://yourdomain.com/category/category-name" title="category-name">Category Name</a></li>
<li><a href="http://yourdomain.com/category/category-name-2" title="category-name-2">Category Name 2</a></li>
</ul>

6. Save to the server and try it out!

Additonally

7. You can incorporate as many category feeds as you'd like.

8. You can create a link to the work of an individual author by utilizing their archive link

ie:  http://yourdomain.com/author/name

Of course, you can also utilize tags by finding their archive links.