will_pigeon

ok, thank you.

well I guess there’s only one way to find out if it will work or not!

if I take a back-up of the server then I can always undo my attempts right?

Hi,

I’m wondering if anyone can help with the questions in this topic? Thoughts? Advice? Is this topic not interesting? All feedback appreciated.

Thank you

Will

re-posted Parameter Handling post with a new title and link Duplicate Pages; Best Parameter Handling in Google Webmaster for WordPress Site?

Please share your knowledge if you can help with the two questions above or any of the questions in the Parameter Handling post.

Thank you

Ok I’ve marked this topic as resolved but I still have a couple of loose ends:

1) Even after setting a Posts Page, why are the “show ’em all” post lists still created?

They have urls http://www.myblog.com/page/1/ to http://www.myblog.com/page/4/ which are distinct from the page I set as my Posts page http://www.myblog.com/pageslug/page/1/ to http://www.myblog.com/pageslug/page/4/ However the content is exactly the same, both using index.php.

2) why the following code does not seem to work for index.php?

<h1><?php if ( function_exists('get_custom_field_value') ) { get_custom_field_value('h1', true);} ?></h1>

Progress Made:
• Canonicalization – I discovered this and am now using it
• Parameter handling – which also seems like a good idea, in fact I have started a topic on how best to use Parameter Handling

Any advice on either of the loose ends appreciated.

Thank you

Will

more unwanted urls:

/?page_id=dacnfvefcwlekffg directs to Posts Page

/?page directs to Front Page
/?ds directs to Front Page
/?cd directs to Front Page
/?cs directs to Front Page

What are all these urls? what’s creating them?

Thanks

Will

Hi Esmi,

Thank you again for the reply.

I have created a new page template specifically for showing all posts, and created a “main Post” page selecting this new template. Yes you are correct, I don’t want to show my main Post page in the navigation menu.

In my 2.8.5 version of WordPress I don’t have an option of Appearance/Menus. Under Appearance my options are; Themes, Widgets, Editor, Add New Themes, My-Theme Options.

I added the exclude= function to wp_list_pages in my header.php after reading this forum message so it now reads:

<?php wp_list_pages('title_li=&exclude=1817'); ?> 1817 being the specific ID for my new page.

I also read another post that suggested it isn’t a good idea to exclude pages this way as it will be lost when upgrading. Is this true?

I also found a plugin but I haven’t used it. But perhaps this is the best option?

Having created my new page to show all my posts and successfully excluded it from the navigation menu, I set it as my Post page in Settings > Reading.

I notice two bits of strange behaviour now:

1) whatever page is set as the Post page in Settings > Reading the index.php overrides the custom page template set for that page. It doesn’t matter which of my pages I set, this happens.

2) the “show ’em all” post lists are still created. They have urls http://www.myblog.com/page/1/ to http://www.myblog.com/page/4/ which are distinct from the page I set as my Post page http://www.myblog.com/pageslug/page/1/ to http://www.myblog.com/pageslug/page/4/ However the content is exactly the same, both using index.php.

Doesn’t this seem odd?

I think it is probably best I don’t have a Post page set if it is only going to duplicate content?

Thank you

Will

Ok so understanding a bit more, I can see that index.php is the last template used if no others are selected. From Page Templates:

“What Template is used to Display a Particular Page?
WordPress will look for several template files in your active Theme. The first one it finds will be used to display any given Page. WordPress will look for files in the following order:

1. The Page’s selected “Page Template”
2. page.php
3. index.php”

As far as I can tell these dynamically created post lists are the only pages that use index.php. Except you say these aren’t pages but post lists, as the content is created dynamically – list of posts in date order. Perhaps the question is – What Template is used to display post lists?

What I don’t get is how these post lists are just appearing? Sure these four pages of post lists link to each other with the Older/Previous Posts link but what is creating this group of four pages of post lists in the first place?

My posts are either assigned to the Blog or Portfolio, and it is through these categories and tag searches that the posts are accessed. I haven’t created a page that just list all the posts. Why does it exist?

The other thing that is bugging me is why is_page_template(‘index.php’) doesn’t seem to work?

Thoughts appreciated.

Thank you

Will

Thank you again, I found the bit that needed changing, I changed it. Now it works with 10 posts per page and no error. Here’s the code I changed:

<?php $temp = $wp_query; $wp_query= null; $wp_query = new WP_Query(); $wp_query->query('showposts=5'.'&paged='.$paged); ?>

	<?php while ($wp_query->have_posts()) : $wp_query->the_post(); ?>

I changed showposts=10.

I also made a change to h1 tag in my index.php. It was previously

<h1><?php if ( function_exists('get_custom_field_value') ){get_custom_field_value('h1', true); } ?></h1>

this is the same as the homepage template, which uses a custom field value ‘h1’. I simply changed it to:

<h1>Recent Posts</h1>

The final change I want to make is to the title. Is there some conditional function I can use to create a custom title in header.php?

Something similar to is_front_page()?

One niggling thing I am wondering; does it matter that we are changing index.php? I mean it doesn’t seem to be used for anything apart from this dynamically created post list, so I guess it is ok to make all these changes?

Thank you

Will