[Resolved] different posts for different menus

[Mary]

hello!
i’m a newbie when it comes to web-building, so please forgive me if my questions are rudimentary.
i’ve seen the first 2 questions all over google and i’ve also seen some similar questions here, but i still can’t get a straight answer that makes sense/works for me…

1) i’ve got about 5 different ‘topics’–[that i want to make into different menus] and i want to post different posts/articles under those different topics. i can’t figure out how to aggregate the different posts into the different menus. i got an ‘exclusion’ app, but it still looks wrong to me.

2) on certain pages, i would like to put a special menu of all the different articles that are only specific to that particular topic. is that possible?

3) also, i just want a static page for “Home”–a “Homepage” that always appears when you first type in the web addres–but i’m also not sure how to do that.

4) finally, i wanted to make the Heading 1 a little smaller (maybe font 22pt) and the paragraph text a little bigger (font 16pt). i saw that there was a way to change that by using html coding/something–but i didn’t know where to insert the code.

[Tom]

Hi Mary,

1. You’ll want to use post “Categories”. When adding your post, you’ll see a “Categories” metabox on the right side of the page where you can add new categories.

Once you’ve added some posts to a couple categories, go to “Appearance > Menus” and choose the “Categories” module on the left side. There you can select your created categories and add them to your menu.

2. This plugin allows you to swap out menu locations on specific pages: https://en-ca.wordpress.org/plugins/menu-swapper/

3. First, create and publish your page in the “Pages” area. Then go to “Settings > Reading” and select “A static page” under the “Front page displays” option. Then select your created home page.

4. If you have GP Premium, you can use the Typography add-on. Go to “Customize > Typography”. The paragraph size can be set in the “Body Typography” section, and the H1 size can be set in the “Content Typography” section.

Hope this helps 🙂

[Mary]

hi Tom!
items 2-4 have been resolved–all those things worked like a charm!! thanks so much for your prompt reply!

but i’m still a little lost about the categories and organizing the posts…

what i’ve done is create a menu named “Primary”. then i’ve added my pages (my topics) to that menu (which have turned into tabs/buttons on my page–this is great!).

following that, i’ve put other pages as sub-items that can be linked to from that button–which has worked great.

BUT, when you talk about adding categories to the menu, are you meaning to just add a sub-item that people *must* click on to access the articles/material from that topic?
b/c i’d like the option (for let’s say–my blog) to just click and get to the most recent posts.

am not using this function correctly?

thanks for the clarity~

[Mary]

hello!
i found an old vid tutorial online and i realized what i was doing wrong.

thanks for your help! i’m going to “resolve” this one.

[Tom]

Sorry I didn’t get back to you sooner! Glad you were able to find the solution 🙂

[Mary]

hi Tom,
thanks so much for all of your help and follow up. i’ve gotten some stuff done on my site, but i’m realizing how steep the learning curve is here… i’ve got a few more questions…

1) i have a VERY VAGUE understanding of CSS and html… i downloaded the Simple CSS plug-in, but i have NO IDEA how to utilize it. i looked up different things on the web and the forums, but everyone already appears to understand how to use CSS and html. where do i put the code to manipulate the elements i want? does it ALL go in one spot? or do i put code in different places for different items (i.e. sidebar menus, header photos, etc…).

****is there a crash course tutorial for this?

2) also, i’m a little confused about page headers. i came across your “generate page header” vid (https://generatepress.com/knowledgebase/generate-page-header/) in your knowledgebase and i really liked the effects. however, i tried to change the header photo for that “Category”, but was having trouble.

for example

2 a) i wanted my header photo above my “Category” content/posts/side menus, make the photo go from edge to edge across the page, and utilize the parallax effect–but couldn’t do either 🙁 can you help me??–does this effect only work when there’s text on the header?
[i played around with different options with “Pages” vs “Posts”, but i’m not sure i’m using them properly… for the purposes of keeping the cleanest interface–(so there aren’t 2 buttons to click for a menu and submenu), i just made everything a “Post” and then put them into a “Category”. then i put those “Categories” into the primary menu.]

2 b) ***what is the best way to do that and get a header photo above my aggregated “Category” posts? should i be putting them into “Pages” instead of “Posts”?–BUT if i do that, can i make it so that i don’t have to create a visible button for the menu sub-item?

3) finally, i was looking up different ways to manipulate my homepage and came across a post where i saw that:

3 a) the menu was transparent at first, but when you scrolled it became opaque like this one: http://dev.proteo-interactive.com/

can you tell me how to do that?

3 b) i also wanted to put a logo of some kind on that menu bar (like on the far left side)… how do i do that?

i hope my questions make sense!
thanks for your help!!

[Tom]

1. This totally depends on what you’re trying to do. If you Google “learning CSS” you might find some good resources that will get you started.

2. Parallax can only work when there’s content and the image is a background image – regular images can’t have the parallax effect I’m afraid.

2b. You’re wanting to add an image above your categories? That’s kind of tough, but there is something information on this forum that may help:
https://generatepress.com/forums/topic/page-header-addon-not-working-on-woocommerce-pages/page/2/#post-165475
https://generatepress.com/forums/topic/blog-page-header-in-categories/#post-164152

3a. This is coming in the next version of GP Premium – we’re just finishing up some last tests before releasing it 🙂

3b. You can use Menu Plus for this. Go to “Customize > Menu Plus” and you’ll see the Menu Logo option.

Hope this helps!

[Mary]

oh noooo~~

Tom,
i tried to use the forums for “Hooks” and added the suggested plug-in from this page: https://generatepress.com/knowledgebase/adding-php-functions/

but then i tried to edit the plug-in with some code you suggested to change the blog-header (found on the forum) and it completely SHUT DOWN my site. i tried to go backwards but it wouldn’t let me.

i’m freaked out b/c i was so close to ‘completion’ and now i can’t touch my site at all now. i have NO IDEA how to get it back up running. what am i supposed to do??

also, in reference to learning CSS–i googled it already and i have a VERY basic understanding of how coding affects/manipulates the stuff on a page–(it’s like a ‘computer-language’ that you input for desired effect), but i’m lost for where to insert those codes in generatepress. is there a tutorial for how to use it for generatepress or am i on my own for that?

i’m probably not going to touch the coding again after this, but i’d still like to try to understand…

PLEASE HELP get my site back up and running!!–or can you direct me to whom i could talk to??–is this a WordPress/Generatepress/BlueHost(my domain people) issue?

[Tom]

Ah, PHP can be pretty unforgiving sometimes, but all is not lost.

Do you have access to your site via FTP or File Manager?

If so, navigate to wp-content/plugins and delete the plugin folder you used for adding your PHP.

Depending on which plugin you used, it should be called generate-simple-php or code-snippets.

Your site should be back then.

If you don’t know how to use your File Manager, call Bluehost and get them to do it.

Once that’s done, your site will be back to the way you left it 🙂

[Mary]

hi Tom,
i contacted BlueHost and they helped me out. phew!! i was worried i’ve have to rebuild everything.

in reference to learning CSS–i googled it already and it summarized my very basic understanding of it–that coding affects/manipulates the stuff on a page–-(it’s like a ‘computer-language’ that you input for desired effect), but i’m lost for where to insert those codes in Generatepress.
1) is there a tutorial for how to use it for generatepress or am i on my own for that? i think if i could understand this a bit better i’d be able to play around with the various possibilities and understand the content on the forums with greater clarity.

i still wanted to try to put up a different header photo for my different categories and wasn’t able to decipher how to do that. there were different options (using “Hooks”–which i didn’t understand at all; or using php–which caused my website meltdown–don’t really wanna do that again…)
2) soooo, in your opinion, what is the *simplest* way to do that?–i have the “Simple CSS” plug-in–which looks ‘simple’, and i’m wondering if i could do it from there?

3) finally, under ‘Menu Plus’ i used the ‘Slider Menu’–but the title for my Home page was something weird–“#2 (no title)”. i wanted to know how to fix that?

i’m coming close to just being ‘satisfied’ with how my site looks enough to launch–thanks for all of your help thus far. i’ve learned so much playing around with GP over the past few days!!

thanks again!

[Tom]

Hi Mary,

1. What codes are you trying to add? CSS? If so, you would use Simple CSS.

2. As in how to add header images to your categories? CSS won’t work for that. You’ll have to use PHP with GP Hooks or your functions file.

3. Not sure what you mean here? If your page was titled no-title it means you didn’t add a title to the page when adding it (the big textbox at the top of the add new/edit page area).

[Mary]

as far as CSS/coding… i’m just trying to understand how to use it.
i’d love to be able to have more control over how my content displays on my website (i.e. my Category title always aligns left and i’d like to center that; the category header header photo issue). at this point, i’m not even sure *where* to insert the code to manipulate things like that.

i know that Generatepress is really lightweight so there aren’t necessarily super easy options for a complete newbie like me. but i’d like to try to learn how to most effectively use Generatepress so that i can be happy with the results of my site. for the most part, i’m really happy with it, but i feel like i’ve been handed a bunch of tools w/ no instruction manual–(i realize that this might be more of a WP issue than a Generatepress issue.)
if you had any suggestions for how to get versed with the VERY basics of manipulating the coding for the site, i’d appreciate it. if it’s impossible to answer this question w/o me taking a class, just let me know.

irrespective, thanks for all of your help–i know it’s probably a little tough to answer questions for someone on the bottom of this learning curve like me.

[Tom]

Looking through all of our add-ons pages and videos is a good way to get an understanding of how you can use the add-ons: https://generatepress.com/knowledgebase/

For CSS, it’s very tough to teach through a forum – most of it is memorizing values etc.. There’s plenty of resources out there though. Codecademy.com is a good one for starters.

It’s also good to have a tool like Inspect Element (Chrome) or Firebug (Firefox) which allows you to play with the HTML/CSS in your browser and see the changes take place.

[Mary]

Tom~~
thank you SO much. i know that i’ve been a bit of a pain, but i’m figuring it out slowly.

even though i can’t figure out precisely how to do everything, your willingness to point me in the right direction has been very helpful.

you’re awesome.

[Tom]

Happy to help where I can – hopefully you have enough information to get rolling 🙂

[Author]

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