A Loop for Each Category
Now that you've reset your query, it's time to create that magazine layout. There are various ways to accomplish this, depending on how you've set up your content. Perhaps you've created a hierarchy of pages, and you want to show those instead. For the moment, however, let's assume that you're using categories to segregate your posts into different departments, since this is the most common scenario. Once you see how this works, you should be able to adapt this code to your needs using some of...
Setting up Super Cache
Unlike most plugins, Super Cache doesn't start working as soon as you activate it. You have to configure it first. You'll see a red-outlined warning message on your plugin list until you set up caching or deactivate the plugin, as shown in Figure 11-2. Figure 11-2. WP Super Cache activation Figure 11-2. WP Super Cache activation Go to Settings Super Cache to configure the plugin Figure 11-3 . The first thing you have to decide is whether to run the plugin in Half On or full On mode. In Half On...
Making Room for Options
For a more complex example, let's look at the Next Page plugin, which provides three template tags. They print links to the previous, next, and parent pages of the currently viewed page. The corresponding functions are very similar to one another, but I'll show you all three so you can see the minor differences. There's a fourth function as well, a utility that's called by the previous_link and next_link functions. It gets a list of all pages, minus those explicitly excluded, and returns them...
Adding an Options Page 1
Almost every WordPress plugin involves some sort of option, and that means you'll need to create the form that lets users manage those options. If you went through the process of creating theme functions back in Chapter 7, the process for plugins will look very much the same. To add an options page to the main navigation menu, you need two functions. One will display the content of the options page, and the other is a container for the add_options_page function. Finally, you'll need to add your...
The Shortcode API
Creating shortcodes in WordPress is a matter of creating the function that prints out what you want, and then defining it as a shortcode. In the case of Next Page, the shortcodes are just alternatives to the template tags they do the same thing. Since that's the case, and there are no arguments to be dealt with, creating the shortcodes takes all of three lines, as shown in Listing 9-17. Listing 9-17. Creating the three Next Page shortcodes add_shortcode 'previous', 'previous_link' add_shortcode...
Why WordPress
WordPress is one of many PHP MySQL content management systems that allow content editors to use a web interface to maintain their sites instead of editing and uploading HTML files to a server. Some systems, like Movable Type and Textpattern, have reputations as good blogging platforms. Others such as Joomla, Drupal, and Expression Engine are more commonly associated with commercial or community sites. WordPress began as a blogging tool, but early on the developers added pages as a separate...