WordPress MU

ok...i really feel like i'm overlooking the obvious on this one, but i'm stumped, so here we go.

i edited my home.php file to create a nifty, new static home page. that worked just fine...thanks to all the great posts in here.

ok, the next stip...where i'm stuck. i want to create a new page, and i want that page to basically mimic the behavior of the "out of the box", standard index page...a list of posts from the main, or "home", blog...the "admin" blog, if you will.

so i'm thinking, well...i just need a new page with "the loop" in it, but i don't know how i should go about MAKING that page (except i guess i could just copy the index.php, or at least the LOOP part)...and then, i don't know the best way to go about adding a link to that page in my menu.

i'm assuming that you can't create a new Page from within the admin area and drop "the Loop" inside there...but if you could, that would explain what it is i'm trying to do...add a new page, featuring "the loop", that will show up in my menu automagically. =)

Thanks!

I guess what you are trying to do is what you can achieve by going to the backend, Options => Reading : here you can specify a page, that will be shown as your home page (just pick a page) and another one that will show the latest posts aka your blog.

as far as I remember for the blog you can just pick an empty page, and it will work and show your posts - if I am wrong, make a new page, based on the template you want and voila.

well, that's not exactly what i'm up to. i went into my template and set up the home.php with some different features. the home.php file is now my actual home page when you go to the domain, and that's perfect.

there were a couple of reasons i didn't use the back-end feature in wordpress to designate a static home page created WITHIN wordpress...one of which was how it would be highlighted on the menu bar...the other was that i actually wanted to call some other scripts and things from within the home page, so home.php was the way to go for me.

so what i'm really trying to do is make like a Home page version 2, i guess. lol i want to have a link to a Page that displays the content that would have FORMERLY been shown on the home page, and i don't know that i can do that by creating a new Page from the back-end of Wordpress.

ok...i'm gonna update myself a little bit....maybe make this a little clearer, if only for posterity sake. =)

i guess what i'm really up to here is trying to add a Page (the wordpress definition, capital "P") that will act like a page full of Posts. the main reason i wanted to do it this way was so the link would magically appear in my Menu and look all pretty and stuff.

however, i guess that just isn't the best way to go about it. Pages are static content, by definition, so i'm going to go about this another way. i will just make a NEW page (little "p") inside the theme folder, and maybe call it "news.php"...then, fill THAT page in with the content i need from "index.php".

after that, i'll just create a Link that points to that php file within my system and use the widgets to put that link into my sidebar.

if anyone knows a better way, i'm still open, but maybe this will help someone out in the future if they are searching the forum.

dangit...well, that didn't work. (see immediate post above this one)

ok. another update. i'm just going to go with the "Recent Posts" and "Archives" features to let people find the postings. i would still like to be able to link to a page that has ALL postings, just like the default home page, but i've not figured out the best way to do that yet.

if you have any suggestions, put 'em up here. i'm good for now, but that info would be nice to have.

I think you should review all the template information over on the codex and see what templates are and do.

Either that, or hire a professional.

Templates are just that. Templates. MU, in it's pure basic form, is WP 2.1 with some extra kicks.

All templates, and their precedence are not exclusive to MU, and function just like the codex says they do.

actually, though my posting may have made it sound so, i'm not exactly a noob or anything. i am not skillful enough to just sit down and write PHP code or anything, but i am versatile enough with it to be able to mold and shape what is already THERE into what i NEED.

my problem here is that i'm just now getting into Wordpress and finding out how it works and what the different terms mean as they relate to it.

basically, i was just trying to find a way to make a "list all posts" page, that would only pull posts from my "central" wp instance, and then link TO that page FROM that instance, and i didn't see a clear way to do that just yet...but then again, i haven't been looking very long. just thought i'd see what folks in here had to say about that.

Which is why I pointed you to the codex. It's a treasure trove of excellent documentation.