Categories

What are Categories?

Think of Categories as your newspaper sections, such as News, Features, Sports, etc. They are used on your site to group similar content (e.g. stories or posts) so that readers can easily find stories that interest them.  You can add as many categories and subcategories to your site as you want, and links to these categories can easily be added to your navigation menu.  You can also easily add categories to your homepage as widgets to any of the widget areas on your homepage or your non-homepage sidebar.  A story may be assigned to multiple categories.

Adding a Category

1. Click SNO Categories under the Stories tab on the left navigation in the WordPress dashboard.
2. Complete the fields for your new category.  Use the Parent pull down menu to identify this category as main level navigation or a sub-menu item for another category.
3. Click the Add button.

Note:  A category will not show up in the navigation bar until you have manually added it to the navigation bar.

Adding a Category to a Navigation Menu as a new tab.

1. Click on Menus under the Appearance tab.
2. At the top of the page, above the left column, choose which menu you would like to add your category to, and click Select.
3. Locate the new category in the list of categories in the left column. (You will probably have to click on Categories and then click on View All.)  Select it, and click Add to Menu.
4. You can then drag and drop the new page to the appropriate place in your menu.
5. Click Save Menu.

Adding a Category to the Homepage with the SNO Story List Widget

1. Click on Widgets under the Appearance tab on the left navigation bar in the WordPress dashboard.
2. Open the Area on the right side of the page where you want the widget placed.
3. Drag and drop the SNO Story List widget into that area.
4. Be sure to select the Category you want shown in the first dropdown menu, determine other formatting options, and click Save.

Deleting a Category

1. Click SNO Categories in the Stories tab on the left navigation in the WordPress dashboard.
2. Hover your mouse over the category name you’d like to delete.
3. Click the Delete link that appears just below the category name.

   Note:  Deleting categories will not delete stories.  If you delete a category that has stories, all stories will remain assigned to other categories they are assigned to. Stories that are not assigned to a category, however, will remain without a category (e.g. Uncategorized).

Editing a Category

1. Click SNO Categories in the Stories tab on the left navigation in the WordPress dashboard.
2. Hover your mouse over the category name you’d like to edit.
3. Click the Quick Edit link that appears just below the category name.
4. Edit the category details.
5. Click the Update Category button.

Category Page Templates

Category Pages are the actual pages that you see when you click on a category from your navigation menu.  These pages show all the stories filed under a particular category like News, Sports, Opinions, etc. Under the Category Templates section on the SNO Design Options page, you can choose whether you’d like these pages to display as Preview Tiles, a List, or a List of stories with a side bar. You can also opt to turn these pages into those that use Custom Widget-Based Layouts.

• The Preview Tiles option displays a customizable group of boxes that fill the page, each showing the featured image headline and date of a different story. The Preview Tiles setting can be customized in various ways to display your stories or content in aesthetically pleasing and intuitive ways.
• The List option is just like it sounds -- a long list of infinitely scrolling stories assigned to that category. This option takes up the width of the whole page.
• The List with Sidebar option displays the stories in a particular category across two thirds of the page and a sidebar that you fill with widgets is displayed in the other third.  This option shows the headline, teaser, date, and featured image for each story.
• The Custom Widget-Based Layout option allows you to build a unique category page using widgets, rather than just displaying a list of stories. Using this option will give you the opportunity to setup your category page just like you would your homepage. See this article for further instructions on setting these up.