An idea for a persistant menu within a category from someone who can’t code…

I kind of have an understanding how wordpress php works, I just can’t for the life of me code.

I’ve had an idea of how to make a menu system to enable you to browse posts within an archive view without going to a single page view – this would allow a persistent menu on the page within a category. Meaning you could browse through a menu list of posts in a category, without leaving the archive view( and therefore your list of posts) and enabling a category specific menu – even if posts are listed in multiple categories…

Here’s the concept – I have set up my archive page to show just the latest post in full, with a list of the latest posts in that category down the side – lets call the latest post in the list “P1” the second from latest post “P2”, the third “P3”

Could you alter the menu so that instead of linking through to the single template view of the post – it links to the same archive we are viewing already only offsetting the post shown by the number in “P2” “p3” etc – ie P3 shows the third post in the archive.

This would enable you to have a browseable menu for each category – with posts being able to be listed in multiple categories – but the menu only showing posts in the category you are currently viewing.

for example – if my list of posts in archive “work” is

P1 = first work
P2 = second work
P3 = third work
P4 = fourth work
P5 = fifth work.

by selecting P3 I will be displaying the work archive latest post offset by 3 (ie offset the post number displayed by the number at which it appears in the list) which would be “third work”

does this make any sense to anyone – I wish I could code!!!!!