QUESTION:
With the fixed height themes, how can I show my blog posts?
ANSWER:
That’s a little tricky with fixed height themes. Since the site sidebar on these themes is strictly for photos, they are not widgetized. But there are several ways you can display blog entries on your site.
- If your posts are organized into different categories, you can add any category to your site menu (assuming you have a custom menu in place for your site). To do so, click on Menus from the left side menu of the WP admin area. On the lower left side of the screen you’ll see a box labeled Categories. Check the box next to any category you want and click on Add to Menu. You can then rearrange the menu order, click on Save Menu, and you’re done. One or more of your blog categories is now part of your main site menu.
You can also add one or more individual blog posts to your site menu in a similar manner. Use the Custom Links box to enter the post’s URL, a title for the page in the “Label” field, then clicking Add to Menu. Save your menu and it now contains a link to an individual post.
- You can make a page and manually enter links to individual blog posts, categories, archives, and/or tags. This is a rather tedious method. What you’re doing is creating a static page that would require updating the page each time you make a new post. In the case of monthly archives, a new link would have to be added to the page with each passing month. For the infrequent blogger, however, this is a quick and simple way to provide access to blog posts.
- A dynamic page is the most practical as well as the most complicated method. Back up your files before taking the following steps:
a. Either open one of your existing theme template pages (such as links.php if you’re not using a links page for your site) or make a new template page. To learn how to create a new page template, check this out. For more guidance on making page templates, please contact me.
b. Now you need to insert some PHP code into this template. The safest place to put this code is directly above or below . That little nugget of code is WordPress’s way of pulling up the content of the page that template is assigned to. More on that later.
To list your ten latest blog posts, add the following:
<?php wp_get_archives(‘type=postbypost&limit=10′); ?>
To list your blog categories:
<?php wp_list_cats(”); ?>
To list your monthly blog archives last 12 months:
<?php wp_get_archives(‘type=monthly&limit=12′); ?>
To list all posts alphabetically:
<?php wp_get_archives(‘type=alpha’); ?>
After you insert the code you want into the page, click on Save.
c. Next, go to the page that corresponds to the template you just edited. If you have not yet made the page or if you started with a fresh page template, go ahead and make your new page. If you don’t want any text on this page, leave the text area blank. Whatever is entered in the text area will appear either above or below your blog links, depending on where you put your code on the page template. If you put it above <?php the_content();?>, your links will appear above your text. If you placed your code below <?php the_content();?>, the links will appear below your text.
On the right side of the large text area, in the Page Attributes box, under Template, select your page template from the drop-down menu. Click on Save (or Update if the page previously existed). Add this page to your site menu. Now you have a dynamic page containing links to the portions of your blog that you chose. These links will update as time passes and as you add posts so there’s no need for you to do anything further with it. Blog away to your heart’s content!
- There are also plenty of plugins out there that provide a way to link to posts, categories, pretty much anything. The key to finding the right one is that you’ll need a plugin that you can implement by using either shortcode in a page or inserting some PHP code in a template page. Since widgets are not enabled on ANA Lace, Satin, or Velvet, a plugin that relies on widgets for execution will do you no good.
These are a few ways you can include links to your blog in your fixed height theme!
