ivovic

“the definition” refers to the place where the style is defined… that is, the bit you’re trying to change.

whoever wrote this css is a nuffy.

.sidebar a:link, a:visited

is NOT the same as

.sidebar a:link, .sidebar a:visited

in the first example only a:link in the sidebar is affected by what follows, but a:visited everywhere is affected.

this broken notation is dotted throughout your css.

this is a known issue with particular versions of MySQL 5… there’s no proper fix that I’m aware of (consider complaining to mysql), but you could search the forums here as it’s been dealt with in numerous threads.

If the wordpress version you’re using is accurate, consider updating to 2.5.1

So, you installed it and saw how many plugins and themes there were.
What an in-depth review.

I guess if I want to know if something installs, or if it’s incredibly popular, I’ll come to you. We can just forget about discussing any of those pesky “features” or comparing to other blogging platforms.

None of that matters as long as it… installs.

aww 😛

ok… back to the single posts, and making them work regardless of how many sub-sub-cats deep your post is being categorised under.

Lets replace the eval_post() function:

Evaluate for Single Posts: eval_post(); – redux –

//feed this function with get_the_category()
//when calling it in the single post template body tag.
function eval_post($categories) {
  global $eus_page;
  $eus_page = "Default"; // Again with the default
  //for every cat we're associated with
  foreach($categories as $category) {
    //pull the parents
    $parentcats = explode('|',get_category_parents($category->cat_ID,false,'|'));
    //remember, most important cat goes LAST in case of multiple membership
    if ($category->cat_ID==4 || $parentcats[0]=='Cat4Name') $eus_page = 'Stepping Stones';
    if ($category->cat_ID==5 || $parentcats[0]=='Cat5Name') $eus_page = 'CLC';
    if ($category->cat_ID==6 || $parentcats[0]=='Cat6Name') $eus_page = 'Community Link';
  }
  return $eus_page;
}

due to the relative complexity of this, and the fact that I haven’t actually put it in a page to test it… this is the least likely of all to work… so do let me know how you go, and we’ll work on making it happen. Don’t be discouraged immediately, I’m confident it’ll go.

in the body tag of your single.php, you’ll then need to call this function as follows:

<?php eval_post(get_the_category()); ?>

This is to ensure that you’re passing all of the current post’s associated categories, whose parents should be discovered.

Time for a coffee… I’ll be around working on some junk, so when you get to this, I won’t be too far off.

I’m making an aside here and giving you something you didn’t ask for, because I think I can sort of predict where we’re going here…

What about browsing category archives? surely you’ll want to be able to click on category names and view all posts in that category – in the same style as the posts themselves, right?

Right.

so lets deal with styling the category archive pages. As it turns out, it’s actually easier to do this with names, so I hope that’s not a problem…

Evaluate for Category Archives: eval_cat();

// feed me the category ID when you call me in the body tag
function eval_cat($catid) {
  global $eus_page;
  $eus_page = "Default"; // what? you again!?
  $post = $wp_query->post; //pull $post so is_category works (again not sure if this is necessary, you find out :) )
  $categories = explode('|',get_category_parents($catid,false,'|'));
  if (is_category(4) || $categories[0]=='Cat4Name') $eus_page = 'Stepping Stones';
  if (is_category(5) || $categories[0]=='Cat5Name') $eus_page = 'CLC';
  if (is_category(6) || $categories[0]=='Cat6Name') $eus_page = 'Community Link';
  return $eus_page;
}

this will (and I use the term ‘will’ loosely) work when browsing top-level categories, and any children of those categories… or their children and so forth.

So, lets say you have subcategories of Community Link called “Free booze and haggis”, you’ll be able to browse that subcategory in the same style as the commlink section.

again.. the sidebar on your cat archive pages will be proudly brought to you by eval_sidebar() and global $eus_page.

…

Which brings me back to the single posts business (remember *home alone face* ?)

What if a post is ticked as being only in “booze and haggis”? It won’t be directly flagged as being a part of the community link section, because in_category(6) won’t trigger.

So we need to extend eval_post() to make that work too…

This will take a sec to cobble together, make yourself comfortable (and forgive me for any errors, as again I won’t be curteous enough to actually test this beyond the code snippits I’m stealing from my functioning blog (sorry)…

I just got back to my desk… lemme dig through a little stuff here, but in the mean time I want to suggest making a little shift in thinking…

I think it would be a mistake to lump all this into a single function because I’m sure that would triple the necessary length of it all. Instead, lets consider breaking this up into more managable (and therefore more updatable) smaller functions.

For example…

Evaluate for Page Templates: eval_page();

function eval_page($pageid) {
 global $eus_page; //global, because it's just that useful.
 $eus_page = "Default"; // Set the page type as default
 while ($pageid) {
  if ($pageid==20) $eus_page = 'CLC';
  if ($pageid==34) $eus_page = 'Community Link';
  if ($pageid==11) $eus_page = 'Recycle Scotland';
  if ($pageid==12) $eus_page = 'Stepping Stones';
  $page = get_post($pageid);
  $pageid = $page->post_parent;
 }
 return $eus_page;
}

I quite liked the simplicity of this, so I vote to keep it (with a little modification, which will allow us to call the right sidebar, regardless of what the hell is going on elsewhere.

don’t worry about all that is_single stuff, lets work on that elsewhere.

I’m gonna break this up into bite-sized posts so it’s easier to follow, so bear with me as I keep posting chunks.

In the mean time, I propose a new function to be used in the sidebar, while the above function is used on PAGE TEMPLATES only like page.php and friends to construct the body tag.

…

Because the body tag is *always* set before the sidebar is called, and because it relies on context-sensitive information like IDs etc, the bulk of the work need be done at that point. For the sidebar, we don’t want to do it again. Instead lets just grab the work we’ve already done.

Evaluate Sidebar: eval_sidebar();

function eval_sidebar() {
  global $eus_page;
  return $eus_page;
}

tada. This should be used to put the value we prepared earlier, into the dynamic sidebar. I’ll refer to this function in my next post too, bear with me. We’re still only on pages… I’ll get to single posts in just a minute.

as one moon-face to another, I implore you to reconsider any prolonged chin-abrasion 🙂

edit: I apologise, I just realised that it’s only me who finds myself funny when I haven’t had any sleep…. and with that, I’m out 😉

good luck with the recovery.