I've been reading posts here and on the regular WordPress forums about channeling post categories to Pages, etc. and it seems like there are a variety of methods and solutions. I think I'm more confused than when I started! I'm also realizing, since this is my first foray into MU, that most of what I'd like to do needs to be plugin-driven rather than hacked in, if I want my users to be able to use themes. (And I do!)
Here's what I'm trying to accomplish, if anyone's willing to slog through it and give me some advice on the best way to proceed:
I'm setting up a system for teachers I work with, so that they can have nice, somewhat localized web sites without having to become semi-expert HTML-slingers themselves.
Rather than just handing them a blog, though, I'd like to be able to give them detailed instructions for setting up what would be a useful site for a typical teacher.
So: let's assume a teacher with two preps/class-types (as a base). I'm envisioning a blog setup where that teacher could categorize posts as 'Announcements', 'Class 1', and 'Class 2' -- the 'Announcements' category would show up on the front or main page, and Class 1 and Class 2 posts would be funneled off to separate pages.
After that, they could, of course, have as many static pages as they wanted, etc. It is important to me, though, that whatever I do, the new additions be treated as Pages, so that they show up automatically in nav bars, navigation link lists, etc, around their sites.
I'm not opposed to having things set up so that they MUST use certain category ID's for their pages (i.e. due to a plugin that I'd have to hardcode to siphon posts with certain IDs away), but I'd like things to be as flexible as they possibly can.
I've started poking around at this, but I don't have the luxury of a lot of time to experiment, unfortunately. Would anyone be willing to suggest a BEST way to accomplish this? (I'm more looking for a <i>method</i> rather than specific coding instructions. I <i>think</i> I can handle that myself. ;)
Thanks!
Jeff.