This first release of Idealien Category Enhancements (ICE) allows you to manage category templates as easily as you manage page templates. Select which template applies to a category through the post > categories menu using file names that make sense, not category ID numbers. Now any views of the category (or sub-categories) will render the according to the category template selected. Posts in a given category can also use a category-based template.
- You can now use one category template for multiple categories without identical copies of the category-##.php
- All category / post templates and settings are relative to the current theme applied to WordPress
- If you select a different theme, the entries will remain in the database in case you want to revert back.
- If you delete a category, all records (regardless of theme / version) will be deleted.
- The Sub-Category Inheritance option applies for both category templates and post templates.
Screenshots
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- Managing the options for ICE
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- Managing a category to select a template
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- An example template with the template comments
Installation
- Download the plugin from the WordPress Plugin Directory
- Unzip files to your wp-content/plugins directory on your local PC
- Upload the files from local PC to your web server
- Activate the plugin through the plugins menu in WordPress
- Go to the Settings > Category Enhancements menu to configure features
- Develop template(s) which can take advantage of this functionality
- Make sure to include the following PHP comments at the top of each template file:
<?php /* Category Template: Custom Template Name
Template URI: Developer website
Description: A short description goes here.
*/ ?>
License
This plugin is GPL2 compatable which means that:
This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation based on version 2 of the License. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.
Download
Wordpress Plugin Directory
This plugin is now available exclusively for download from the WordPress Plugins Directory at http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/idealien-category-enhancements/
14 Comments
Hello,
actually i wanted to use this plug in just for the purpose of defining a particular template for posts within a a particular category. It works great for categories but i don’t want to use this for category as wordpress also provides a default way of doing it. but i could figure out how to use this for posts, if u can provide some help that would be great.
With the functionality of the plugin as it currently is designed, it is possible to do this, just not that much more elegant than the standard wordpress method.
<?php include (TEMPLATEPATH . '/category.php'); ?>There still is a code maintenance / development improvement by using ICE to accomplish this over standard WP. If you were customizing the post templates for 15 different categories in 3 ways with the standard, you would either have to create 15 post templates or put a lot of category-ID logic into one massive one that wouldn’t allow you to add new categories without making a code change. With ICE enabled, you would create 3 category templates and 3 post templates and then can select through the admin console for as many new categories as you want.
You are not the first to request post-templates-by-category functionality which behaves independantly of whatever the category template mechanism is. I’ve started to investigate that as a primary feature to build into the next release of the plugin. The other one which has been requested that I am working on is the ability to override the template per post by exposing the same template selection box in the post editing window.
Hello,
My theme was recently upgrade to a child-theme architecture, where the bulk of the theme’s files are in a parent theme folder (single.php and category.php) and the modified child themes are in a different folder at the same level (themes/childtheme and themes/parenttheme).
I have tried adding (in my case) single-wide.php and category-wide.php files to either and both locations but can not find joy!
Since the single.php file natively resides in the parent theme’s folder only, I figured that would be the place for my single-wide.php
Any one else using this type of theme architecture?
The next version of ICE should be ready for close to the same time that WP 2.8 comes out and will have full support for parent / child themes. Stay tuned!
Thanks Idealien,
I really anticipate for the next version. Actually if overriding templates per post basis is made it would be great.
i needed that feature also and i think many people will need it.
as for category statement u r right but actually i use static page for categories. means just simple hand made static php code, however you plugin is great in that case also. I was just worried about the processing speed.
Well all the best for you new version, when can be hope for that plugin Idealien?
Hi Idealen,
Great Plugin! But….!
Could you add option to change THEME for each category (NOT TEMPLATE!)?
So that each category can open in its own theme.
It is much easier to creat a THEME FOLDER than template in default folder.
Thank you.
Glad you like it Alisher.
Right now, I can’t say that I see the value in having that kind of feature. To the site visitor and content author, there would be no difference between many category template files in one theme versus a series of themes with one category template in each. To me, creating a copy of an existing category template and modifying it for the new use is a pretty easy process. There would be more work in creating separate style.css, folder and template files. Perhaps you can explain more about why to help me understand the rationale better?
You’re always welcome to customize my code for your own uses. You might leverage some of the new parent / child theme work that the community is starting to do for this type of implementation.
I always file posts under two separate categories, one of which is always “All Posts” because this dictates what is shown on my front page as featured posts. I’ve set up different templates, one for my blog posts and one for my recipe posts – but when I click the entries, these templates are overridden since the post also belongs to the “All entries” category.
Is there any way I can specify each post to use a specific template? I want my cooking posts to have a different template, and the “All posts” category messes this up. At the same time I need that category to stay as is.
Multiple category presentation is not something that I am aware of any plugins providing an elegent solution for at this point.
However, as of WordPress 2.7 there is the concept of sticky posts which you might look into as a way to simplify your posting process regarding front page content that would result in a solution to your particular challenge. Nathan Rice’s Definitive Sticky Posts Guide would be a good place to start. I also installed Admin Show Sticky on my site so that I can see at a glance which posts are currently stuck to the front page.
If that does not work, another option which *might* work is to ensure that your ‘all posts’ category is alphabetically last in your list so that the “primary” categories you’re interested in will be picked up first in the loop logic to determine what category template to use.
This plugin was a lifesaver for me, thank you for your hard effort!
Glad to hear it Greg! I’m always interested in the ways which people use my plugins successfully. I’m working on a post currently that showcases sites like that. If you Send me more details on the site and how the plugin helped and I’ll include liks to your site in that post when it is complete.
Hello,
If you looking at how your plugin helped my website, i can send you the details how i used plugin on my website. Let me be frank, without your plugin completing my website would have been very difficult. I really want to share my happiness with with you, but not here in the comment. You plugin rocks.
BTW: why does u use anything like subscribe comments?
Thanks for the kind words Ashish. There is an option to donate by paypal in the ICE options page if you would like to support additional plugin development
As is often the case for freelancers, I let personal projects take a back-seat to client work. I am in the process of doing a major update to the design for this site. Subscription to comments is one of the many plugins on my list to integrate as a part of those efforts. A forum is also on my list – to enable a wider degree of conversation between myself, plugin users and other plugin developers who might want to collaborate on other projects. More details soon on both of those I hope.
Hi, I’m not sure how to use your plugin. I am using Brian Gardner’s Revolution “City” Theme, and I created a new template:
Here’s the code I used, is this wrong?
Here’s my plain Template
Anyway, when I make a new post, there is nothing in the drop down for me to select this plain template to test. I’ve added your plugin, activated it, but I must not understand the instructions when you say to make a template ie: develop it. What else must I do, and am I to put your code at the top of all single.php blog_page.php pages as well.
I guess I need the “plugin for dummies” install instructions as I’m not understanding what steps to take next and there’s nothing in my dropdown box to add a new category template when I go to add a new category.
Could you please help with a little more details on how to use this? Thanks very much for your good work, I just can’t figure it out
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