Category Plug-in Question

[mixeduptunes]

Hi,

I've looked at various plug-ins and can't decide which would be the best for what I want to do..

I am building my first WordPress blog - www.your-holiday-vacation.com and in the categories I have different tips, advice etc which relates to different destinations
ie. "skiing in alaska" would fall under 'skiing' and destination 'alaska'
"skiing in austria" would fall under 'skiing' and 'austria'
"mountaineering in alaska" would fall under 'mountaineering' and 'alaska'

So what I want to do is have the categories such as skiing and mountaineering showing in my sidebar (just as they are at the moment) but the destination ones to be as a seperate category heading (instead of the default Categories)

So it would look like this on my sidebar:
Categories
- Skiing
- Mountaineering
Destinations
- Alaska
- Austria

Possibly even having the destinations being hidden unless the actual word Destinations is clicked on to reveal all the destinations.

Can anyone tell me if it is possible and if so, what do I need to make it happen.

Thanks.

[ProfitBlogger]

Hi Simon,

I'm not sure what your question is. In WP you can assign each post to multiple categories or sub-categories.

Lets say your post "Skiing in Alaska" is assigned to Category : Skiing and Destination : Alaska.

When a user is browsing by category, they will see all post is the main category and subs as well, including the post "Skking in Alaska". Same goes for Destination.

-gk-

[andreww]

Hi Simon,
as far as i'm aware, you can only have one master category, as opposed to 2 different categories (eg. category 1: destinations, category 2: activity (skiiing, diving)).

if i were in your situation, i'd create categories for skiing and alaska and categorize it in 2 categories.

for search engine purposes, it'd optimize your pages.

[mixeduptunes]

Hi GK and Andrew,

It seems you sort of understand and don't understand quite what I'm getting at.

I know that you can't see it from looking at my sidebar but the following

Alaska
Australia
Canada
Caribbean
Portugal

are all sub-categories of a category called 'Destinations'

I think as I add more destinations and activities, the sidebar is going to become very untidy!

I have come across a plug-in called "Fold Category List" which can be found here http://www.webspaceworks.com/resources/wordpress/31/ and what this is supposed to allow me to do is the following:

When someone in viewing my blog, they will see the sidebar as such:

Destinations
Ski Vacations
Sunsets
Travel Tips

BUT when they click on the category "Destinations" then the sidebar will look like this:

Destinations
- Alaska
- Australia
- Canada
- Caribbean
- Portugal
Ski Vacations
Sunsets
Travel Tips

Then they can choose which destination they would like to see more post on.

Do you follow what I mean?

That plug-in appears to allow this to be done but I had trouble installing it and wondered if there was any other plugin that would allow such a thing.?

Thanks

[andreww]

Hi Simon,
let me see if i get what you're saying.
are you asking to be able to set up categories and sub categories?

that means in your context:

1)Europe (Category)
1a) England (sub-category)
1b) Germany (sub-category)
1c) France (sub-category)

if i get you right, you want a 2 tier link system.

can you confirm or correct me?

[mixeduptunes]

Hi Andrew,

I already have the category and subcategories. What I want is for the subcategories to be invisible unless someone clicks on the category header!

This means that if I end up with 50 destinations, they won't all be there cluttering up my sidebar, unless someone actually clicks on the category "Destinations" and then they will all appear again.

The reason I want to do this as well is that when I create a post, I am going to be posting to 2 different categories/sub-categories as detailed in previous posts to make it easier to find relevant information later on when I have hundreds of posts.

[andreww]

Hi Simon,
i understand.
i'd like to that as well.

i'm about 2 mths into wordpress, and have been focusing on content creation all this time.

i guess surfing around the more technically inclined blog users would be good.

I'd eventually want to learn how to set up radio blog club on my blog as my friend has done here. http://www.watthefish.com/jask/

he mentioned he had to go through programming hell to get it set up right.

i'm not that familiar with PHP yet, and that's another thing i have to look into.

[mixeduptunes]

Andrew,

I'm sure at some point, someone will come along with the answer.. As I've seen it done on the link I've provided in a previous post.. there must be other instances of it being used... I just need to learn the technicalities of it.

I've just looked at the site you pointed to with regards to radio blog... great to see DJ Tiesto was included in there and reminded me of something I would like to do with my blog.

I would love to be able to include video clips either with the relevant posts or within the side bar - ie. a 60 second footage of the sea and beach in the caribbean to go with some artlcles on that place - I wonder if any affiliates programs have video's like that that direct people back to their site to place the orders? *Just thinking out loud now*

[ProfitBlogger]

I see...

waht you mean is a collapsible categories plugin...

I'm sure i came across it before but now i cant seem to find it. maybe you can refine your search on Google using "collapsible" and "ajax"

As far as I know, only Javascript / AJAX technology can produce real-time expanding / contracting menus and navigation for Wordpress.

If you do find one thats non-geek, I hope you can share it here Simon.

-gk-

P/S: On the SEO point of view though, i don't think its a good idea to have too many categories / subs. The final URI should not have too many "/" before the actual post slug..

[swami]

Simon

In your question you have given the solution yourself. The fold categories plugin is excellent to use for the purpose you mention.

If you make a post, and assign it to categories, say, skiiing and destinations (within destination you would have various places, like Alaska), and someone clicks on skiiing, they would see your post. They will not see the same post in destinations category unless they click on the category heading - once they click, a list of destinations would be displayed.

If you visit the plugin page, you will find directions on the code you need to insert in the sidebar.php


Swami