Until now you had to use a query in your theme or a Plugin to adjust the design or the content according to a specific category. In version 2.9 the template hierarchy gets expanded and you can create with the help of a slug an own template.
Here is an example: some posts with short news – a microblog. Therefore I create a category with this name and use the generated slug.
The presentation of these posts in the category overview should be different. Previously it was necessary to integrate the following query:
if ( is_category('microblog') ) {
// here the output or integration of the stylesheet for category Microblog
}
In WordPress 2.9 it’s sufficient to use the according template category-microblog.php to use this template, if you are in the category of the slug microblog. Alternatively you can still use ID, which can be changed but with the name of the slug is the identity unique and easy.
Comments
6 responses to “New Category Templates in WordPress 2.9”
I’ve always used the category-5.php template method to style categories differently, I’ve never had to use queries.
This could already be done with the category ID (category-3.php) – arguably still better since ID check is a bit more efficient and a user might change the slug.
It is allways possiblte to use the id-template. I think, the slug-version is only a other way, better for customer.
For me is the name of the template more intuitive. Sometimes i work local for a client and the ID’s on the local system must be not the same as the ID’s from the live system. So i can edit the category-products.php and i don’t have any trouble with my local system and the live system.
This is also good for theme developers, because you distribute a free or premium theme with a special category template such as “micorblog” and let the user know they have that as an option. The next step would of course, to be able to set “single-microblog.php” But then we might be stepping into custom post types.
I think this is a step up from requiring the ID (easier for the customer and easier to include in a theme). It’s still somewhat limiting because you will require the user of the theme to have a category with the slug of “whatever” to use the template, even if they don’t want one, but still want the template. I’m still glad they added it though.