Jul.15.2007
Make Your Categories Drop Down
- Filed under: Tips
Have too many categories? Don’t want to list them all on one page, but still want them in the sidebar? For some reason, you just like drop down menus? Then, why aren’t you using
wp_dropdown_catgories
?
The WordPress Codex makes it very easy to have dropdown categories. It’s a simple copy and paste into your sidebar.
This is a good tip! I never knew this existed. I don’t have that many categories yet, but if so I will know what to use in the future.
I would like to make something more with categories.
I’m trying to manage the get_categories() function to make it work like the Stevenberg’s Blogroll Autolinker (http://stevenberg.net/projects/blogroll-autolinker/). I think it would be very useful.
Simply a fantastic idea. And since there are so many things people want to include in a sidebar, being able to condense the category section in this manner gives back some prime real-estate. Thanks for the great tip.
Another way of doing this, that maintains the look rather than the dull drop down, would be a simple collapse/expand javascript like this one:
http://support.internetconnection.net/…
I’m using it on my website for RSS feeds to blogs I link to. I find it to be really useful.
How is it I’ve been using WP for over two years and didn’t know about this?
This thip must be tried. This is a good idea!
[…] Make Your Categories Drop Down […]
I think it could be negative under the SEO point of view.
Runa, can you elaborate on that? I don’t see how it would be bad for SEO. Sorry, I don’t know much about SEO.
Thanks for the tip I’ve done this on a few of my sites, but I’m trying to do the same with my Archives. Is there a quick easy way to make archives a drop down?
thanks in advance
Its a great tips, i will use it in my blog, Currently i used tree for my blog, but its better i think to use drop down. Thanks a lot.
Hi..Small Potato..
Ur website really2 meanfull
Thnx for tutorial..
Small Potato,
the reason the categories dropdown is bad for SEO is because the categories are no longer physical links i.e. links are javascript driven by selection. Which means A) they probably dont count as internal links and B) there is no link text both of which contribute to good SEO
I think something like EarthGolf’s solution (http://www.wpdesigner.com/2007/07/15/make-your-categories-drop-down/#comment-24497)
with a collapsing div is a good alternative because even though the functionality of show/hiding is js driven the physical links are still there
Richard - I’m pretty sure most bloggers looking into drop down categories don’t really care about seo. Some even go as far as blocking SE from crawling category pages.
well there probably are some, but i think many bloggers are using this widget for the sake of saving space too…
anyway nice blog!
Thanks for the tip