ColdForged

Sounds like you need to write a plugin and use an add_filter() on the_content. Base it on code in the wp-includes/template-functions-post.php file in the get_the_content() function which is the one that processes the <!--more--> and <!--noteaser--> tags.

I basically cut and pasted the stuff I still needed inside the begin/end and it works just fine now.

That’s likely the one thing you don’t want to do, unfortunately. Everything inside the #BEGIN/#END pair is considered to be “owned” by WordPress, and will be rewritten anytime the rewrite rules need to be modified (e.g. when you create a new Page).

So, deleting the old WordPress rules is fine and keeping the “stuff you still needed” is fine, but place them either before or after the WordPress stuff.

And another pastebin is available at http://pastebin.com

Maybe I wasn’t clear… we understand what you want. Kafkaesqui provided a method to do what you want but you said that “it doesn’t help you” and asked for something easier. I said that’s as easy as you’re going to get in WordPress, and asked which part of Kafka’s recommendation you were having difficulty either understanding or getting to work.

Currently at a loss.

Nope. By “including” I mean the following:

<?php query_posts('cat=1,2,4,6,7,8,9');?>

WordPress doesn’t support multiple category exclusions, unfortunately, nor will it for the forseeable future. That said, if you want to attempt it you can see some directions here for adding support into WordPress for multiple category exclusions. Note if you don’t know PHP then don’t attempt it… no warranty is either expressed or implied and you’ll be on your own :).

Note that you have the option of including all of the categories you want to include instead of excluding the two categories you don’t want.

Could you try rewording your question or elaborating? I’m not following you at this point. To directly answer without more understanding of your needs, you could always modify the global $query object and do the following:

global $query;
$query->is_page = true;

But if you do it before The Loop, it’ll get reset anyway.