Recently one of my clients wanted his categories to display in the sidebar. And he wanted the posts to display under each category.

So, of course, I went to the WordPress Plugin Repository. A search for ‘categories’ yielded a mere 42 pages of results.

How did I choose?

I just started reading the descriptions. If you ever have some free time, browse around the Repository. What these plugin developers do is amazing.

There are category plugins that hide certain categories from certain user levels. Some exclude designated categories from designated pages. Plugins that translate the category names. Plugins that create a category cloud widget. A plugin to exclude specific categories from the home page.  Plugins that do things in code that I don’t understand.

And finally on page two, I found what I was looking for: Collapsing Categories.

This is a very simple plugin that uses Javascript to form a collapsible set of
links in the sidebar for the categories. Every post corresponding to a given
category will be expanded.

Perfect!

I always want to see the front end view before I spend a lot of time figuring out the rest of the plugin, so I took a quick trip to the widget section and dragged the ‘Collapsing Categories’ widget into place. It displayed flawlessly with the default settings. Take a look:

Note the little arrows pointing to each category name. See beside ‘Email Plugins’, the arrow points down instead. The titles of the three posts I’ve written and assigned to that category are displaying. Visitors can click the category of interest and navigate from the sidebar to any posts they want to read. Clicking the arrow again will collapse the posts, making it easier  to navigate.

Next week I will explain how to install and configure this plugin. It has the ability to customize the JavaScript, and the widget itself has an extensive profile for customization. We’ll see what this plugin is capable of. Talk with you then.

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First, I need to apologize to my readers. After editing and tweaking my blog post last week, I neglected to click “Update”, and so my post had the notes I’d written myself in all caps. It is now corrected, so if you’d like to read the new version, click here.

Twitter Tools has provided weeks of blog topics, and I have learned a lot. To access all the posts, simply click here or on “Twitter Tools” in the navigation bar.

The past three posts have dealt with configuring the options section of the settings page. The first post was an overview of the plugin and the second was about the plugin backend with a section on hashtags.

Today I’ll cover the Experimental, WordPress HelpCenter, and Update Tweets/Reset Checking and Digests sections. Next week’s post, the last one on this plugin, will cover Bit.ly, Exclude Categories, #hashtags, and ReadMe. And that will be all! I don’t know what plugin I’ll investigate next. Does anyone have a suggestion?

This section, Experimental, provides the option to post your tweets as a blog post on your website, either daily or weekly. I haven’t tried this but I can see where it might be useful, especially if your tweeting included lots of how-to or promotional information.

You can see the chronological order of the tweets and change the title of the blog posts. I don’t see where the time for the posting of the weekly digest blog can be set, or even if it can be. And, I don’t see any mentioned of the timing of these digest posts.

WordPress HelpCenter appears to be a business run by a team of WordPress rock stars. They provide many services to WordPress users including theme customization, site maintenance, tech support, and support for plugin developers. I see more and more plugin developers displaying their information, so they must be well respected in the WordPress community.

I mentioned several posts ago that if your tweets stopped displaying, you could click “Test Login Info” under Options, and it would reset your Twitter feed. These fields would probably be much more effective at resetting specific areas. I’m thinking that sometimes Twitter stops working (how many times have you tried to access Twitter and it wasn’t available), and when it starts back it hangs up. Before going to Twitter Tools tech support, come here and click the buttons that apply. My feed stopped working in my sidebar, and when I clicked “Test Login Info”, it started working again.

That’s all for today. See you next week!

Be on the lookout for the Twitter Tools Setup Guide.

If you want to sign up to have my blog posts delivered to your inbox, click here.

If you enjoyed this post and found it useful, please click the “tweet” button at the top of the post.

Or use the “Share This” tool to share using your favorite social network.

Need help with this plugin? Click here to go to my contact form.

Need a virtual event for your website? Contact me here: Deborah at MyWPWorks dot com.

]]> http://mywpworks.com/twitter-tools-digests-helpcenter-and-updatereset-tweets-digests/feed/ 1 http://mywpworks.com/twitter-tools-settings-part-3-of-3/ http://mywpworks.com/twitter-tools-settings-part-3-of-3/#comments Fri, 16 Jul 2010 13:39:25 +0000 Deborah http://mywpworks.com/?p=1339

Once again, I am blogging about how to use the Twitter Tools WordPress plugin on your website. I have figured out that there is so much information here that when I’m finished, I will create an ebook from it! Last week’s post, Twitter Tools Settings, covered the settings 1 – 4 in the image below. This week’s post will cover 5 – 9.

5. Create a blog post for each of your tweets?

Do you want your tweets displayed on your blog page as a blog post? If so, change this to yes. The default is no.

6. Category for tweet posts?

If you want your tweets to display as blog posts, you must assign them to a category. Consider creating a category called Tweet Posts. In case you don’t know how, go to Dashboard/Posts/Categories and create it there. Then you will see it in the dropdown for number  6.

7. Tag(s) for your tweet posts:

Tags are for the people who visit your site. This probably should be updated frequently as your tweets/blogging evolves.

8. Author for tweet posts:

The choices in the dropdown are limited to the users set up on your website. If you want your Twitter name to display, you will have to set up a user on your WordPress site with that name.

9. Exclude @reply tweets in your sidebar, digests, and created blog posts?

Do you want the tweets you receive to display in your sidebar widget, digests, and blog posts? Remember, this is what other people are saying, not you. The default is no, so if you’re confident that all your @reply tweets will be content you approve, change it to yes.

That’s all for this week. Stay tuned for the finish of the Twitter Tools settings. But it’s not over there. More information on using this great WordPress plugin will follow!

Here are the links to the last three Twitter Tools posts in case you need to catch up:

Twitter Tools-The Little Plugin That Could

The Mechanics of Twitter Tools

Twitter Tools Settings

If you want to sign up to have my blog posts delivered to your inbox, click here.

If you enjoyed this post and found it useful, please click the “tweet” button at the top of the post.

Or use the “Share This” tool to share using your favorite social network.

Need help with this plugin? Click here to go to my contact form.

Need a virtual event for your website? Contact me here: Deborah at MyWPWorks dot com.