Shortening the Sidebar
I received a few complaints about the length of the sidebar and I can’t say I blame anyone for disliking it. The length is pretty obnoxious, especially on smaller pages.
The root of the problem has three pieces. First, the Stories section of the Manila blog moved to Pages in WordPress. I had no control over what went where during the import. In Manila, the Stories had their own table of contents separate from the main part of the weblog, so they were not featured as prominently. Second, in WordPress, the Pages list automatically on the side navbar and it takes some fiddling, magic, and server and/or template access to change that. Because this is WordPress Multiuser, I do not have access to the server or the templates, so I can’t manually adjust the way pages display. Third, Pages and Stories seem to have slightly different purposes, so the mapping isn’t exactly one-to-one. In Manila, Stories was the place we could put longer posts–notes from various gatherings, presentations, essays, etc.
I tinkered with the Pages list some during the last few days, but I haven’t found a satisfactory solution yet. What I would like to do is move all but a few page titles off the sidebar and stick them on a table of contents that is a subpage. I managed to change the page parent of the longer pages, but they still post on the front page beneath the title of the page which is now their parent. People who have access to their WordPress templates can specify the number of hierarchical levels that will display on the homepage. I don’t have that privilege because the server runs WordPress Multiuser. Since there might be a default setting, I tried two levels in and the long list of page titles still appeared. I’m not sure how far down I want to try.
I did, however, find an interesting issue. Once pages move under a parent other than the homepage, they disappear from the Manage Pages list. Some show up with a – in front of the title, but most are gone. The screens on which they used to appear, however, are still there as blank pages. Even though there are only a few items on the parent list now, I still have to move through 6 pages, most of which are empty, to get to the last items on the list.
I read through the WordPress manual’s Pages section, but didn’t find quite what I was hoping for there. It looks like in order to do exactly what I want to do, I need to have access to the page templates and the server, which I don’t have since this is WordPress’ multiuser version. People running their own installs can alter some code to specify which pages should appear and which ones should not. There are quite a few more help documents I should read when I get the chance. Maybe I can find the answer.
Similarly, I’d like to have a link to a page listing all the links to the archives instead of having each month and year represented on the front page.
I miss Manila’s super-customizable templates.
March 16th, 2007 at 1:51 am
I wrote to you about this issue, and the problem your blog continues to have with an open link which makes the text turn dark red when the mouse moves over it. That needs to be fixed NOW. Hint, hint.
As for Pages, you are using them as posts. How can I put this nicely. Stop it.
Pages are for static information, things you want to be visible ALL the time. Posts, like this one and Dean and Lieberman, New Hampshire from 2005, need to fade off into your post archives and not be Pages.
I wrote about this in WordPress Pages: Exploring the Pseudo-Static Pages of WordPress, which may help you understand this subject more.
Pages are for your About, Contact, Schedule, and critical permanent information. Put your energy into post categories to increase navigation to like content, like a library.
Think of your posts as pages in a book and your categories as the table of contents.
Pages would be the Intro, Copyright, Preface, and Author Bio.
I fought long and hard to get WordPress to change the name, but “Pages” stuck and we’re stuck with the confusion.
In WordPress Plugins To Help You Administer Your Blog, I list several WordPress Plugins that will help you move your Pages to posts very easily.
I hope this helps.
You also might consider using a Recent Posts Plugin which will put your most recent content at the of your sidebar, and another for displaying “Article Highlights”, a random post listing of 5-10 posts. This features old posts from your past, which is what I think you really want to do. The Customizable Post Listings WordPress Plugin will help you with that.
If I can help you fix this, please let me know. I know you’ve been suffering with these problems, especially the open link, for a long time and it’s a very easy fix and you will be much happier, as will your readers.
March 20th, 2007 at 1:09 am
You’re sidebar is so long because you have archives listed for every month. Are you able to edit any of the code? You could convert those pages into posts with the same name and “slug”. If you need any help, let me know, I have a pretty good working knowledge of Wordpress, I have 10 blogs and have been using wordpress for about 2 years.
March 20th, 2007 at 9:38 am
Hello Brandon,
Thank you for your comment and your offer to help. I state above in several places and elsewhere on this blog that I don’t have access to the server, the templates, the code, etc., so most of the common methods for shortening the sidebar aren’t ones I can employ here. That’s awfully frustrating because I’d love to be able to add the line to the code that lets me specify which pages should display in the navbar and which ones shouldn’t. WordPress Multiuser is not as feature-full as its single-version sibling.
If I have some time to look into a solution again, maybe I’ll explore the feasibility of converting the pages into posts. I’ve been too busy to do as much to this weblog as I hope to be able to.