WordPress MU

Not sure if this is a bug or a new "feature" but since the upgrade to RC4, the Links manager (Now blogroll) doesn't have any categories, but they show up mixed in with the blog Post categires in the Write area.
What gives?

Been that was over in Wp.com land for quite some time. Link and Post categories got combined.

oh that is so not good. It's counter-intuitive as well.

Some WP.com users said worse things. :)

It also causes lots of problems for some themes as I posted about in this thread. I posted a work around for it but I'm sure there is a better way. I think you can pull from the categories table on type link, but I haven't tried.

I agree, that was a big mistake.

Combining the tables is one thing, but not distinguishing between Post Categories and Link Categories in the Administration Panel just adds another level of confusion for new users.

Someone technically minded saw it would be efficient to keep them in the same table since their structure is similar--fine--but conceptually they do not have anything to do with each other and it is a mistake to represent it that way in the Administration Panel.

At WordCamp, Matt asked during "State of the Word" how we can make WordPress less scary. This is one of the ways:

Add a column to the table that distinguishes the cat_type (e.g. Post Category or Link Category) and bring back the Link Categories sub-tab in the Administration Panel.

Change the sub-tab under Manage from 'Categories' to 'Post Categories'.

Finally, don't display any post categories when viewing link categories, and vice-versa.

It is especially irritating when adding/managing links to have to flip over to the Manage tab in order to add a link category. That is not intuitive at all.

Agreed but last I heard (and this was before WordCamp) was that the seperation wasn't coming back.

I wonder if this coudl be handled via a plugin? I haven't got the brain power to figure that out at the moment. :D

Now that the categories are integrated, I can't figure out how to get link/blogroll images to work. There used to be a checkbox to enable them and I can't find one now. Anyone know how to enable the link images?

Andrea, you would have to add to the category table a column stating which category each one belonged to like the posts table is for posts and pages.

MB, we've been wondering that for months now in WP.com land. Haven't been able to get an answer out of staff on it.

Having the same problem here, many themes that are supposedly supported by MU will not work with links gone (I get a "WordPress database error: [Table 'blah' doesn't exist] SELECT cat_id, cat_name FROM_1_linkcategories
"). Not very elegant, to say the least!

as there's two months gone since the last post i just wanted to ask all of you how you handle that problem now?

Would be glad if anyone could share his knowledge on that.

I left it. Hadn't noticed a problem with any of the themes I have, and it's not coming back, so it has been pretty low on my list.

My previous post in this thread references a thread where I posted a solution to the error seen on some themes.

It's older themes that have the issue. Since WP 2.1 is going to be doing categories like WPMU now does it, I hope we're going to see a lot of themes being updated.

I'm not holding my breath though. :(

Just out of curiosity, what are the pros of this move?
(Since we all know the cons...)

I LOVE having the post and link/blogroll categories the same in wordpress.com blogs. It keeps me and my Gender & Technology students from typing categories twice.

I'd like to combine the categories for the 2.1 wordpress.org install. I've spent hours trying to find a way but so far am not savvy enough to make changes in the DB or functions.

My goal is to list on the page (not the sidebar) only links related to the post category chosen from the menu or search field.

Anyone have a solution?
pam.vanlonden@oregonstate.edu