This article may be outdated and contain information pertaining to an older version of WordPress. Please take caution when following the procedure, as many things may have changed.

Links → Link Categories

All link category administration is performed at this Link Categories SubPanel. WordPress allows different categories of links to be displayed and formatted differently on your site, so these categories are not only useful organizationally, but also aesthetically.

Like the Manage Links SubPanel, the Link Categories SubPanel has two roles: one to list and add link categories, and another to edit them.

Link Category Listing and Adding

This is the default role of the SubPanel.

Table of Link Categories

The currently defined link categories are displayed as rows in this table with the following columns.

• Name - The name of the category is what is displayed on your site.
• ID - The link category's ID is a unique identification number WordPress uses to identify individual categories.
• Toggle? - This tells you whether or not the Auto-Toggle feature has been enabled for this category.
• Show
  • Images - Whether or not WordPress shows any images associated with links in this category.
  • Description - Whether or not WordPress shows any descriptions of the links in this category.
  • Rating - Whether or not WordPress shows the ratings of the links in this category.
  • Updated - WordPress can keep track of when a link was last updated. If a category is set to Show Updated, WordPress will make a note on your site of recently updated links. For more information, see the Miscellaneous Options SubPanel under the Options Administration Panel.
• Sort
  • Order - This tells you how WordPress sorts links in this category. Links can be sorted by Name, ID, URL, or Rating. Links can also be sorted so that those recently Updated appear at the top of the list, or links can be displayed in a Random order.
  • Desc? - Short for Descending. Sort descending reverses the order of the list of links for this category on your site.
• Formatting - Useful for customizing the HTML WordPress generates when displaying the links from this category.
  • Before - The string of characters WordPress inserts before the a link in the list for this category.
  • Between - The string of characters WordPress inserts between a link and its description.
  • After - The string of characters WordPress inserts after a link.
• Limit - The number of links that will be displayed on your site from this category. If it reads none, all of the links from this category will be displayed.
• Edit - Edit this link category using the Link Category Editing role.
• Delete - Delete this link category. You will get a warning asking you to confirm the deletion, which is good, since there is no undelete feature. As you are reminded in the note at the bottom of this SubPanel, deleting a link category does not delete the links it contains. Instead those links will be moved into the default category (the note tells you what this default is).

Below the table is a note telling you that these options are only the defaults. They may be overridden by a theme which adds arguments to its Template Tags.

Add a Link Category

When you need to add a Link Category, turn to this section of the Link Categories SubPanel.

Category Options

The following configuration options can be set for your category.

Name

Name your category. The name is what will display on your site. Each Link

Show

These checkboxes allow you to specify whether or not to display:

• any Images associated with the links in this category,
• any Descriptions of links in this category,
• the Ratings of the links in this category,
• and whether a link has been recently Updated.

Sort

You may sort the links in this category by Name, ID, URL, Rating, Updated or Random. Updated ensures that recently updated links are displayed at the top of the list, and Random orders the links randomly. You may also check the adjacent Descending checkbox if you would like to reverse the normal order.

Limit

You may limit the number of links displayed from this category by entering a number in this text box. Alternatively, you may leave it blank to display all the links from this category.

Toggle

Check this box to turn on the Auto-Toggle. Uncheck the checkbox to disable Auto-Toggle.

Auto-Toggle

When a new link is added to a category whose Auto-Toggle feature has been enabled, WordPress will hide all other links in this category so that the new link is the only one displayed on your site. This can be used as an effective way to let your viewers know you've added something new.

Note: If Auto-Toggle is set, only one link in this category will ever be visible, even if you try to make other links visible manually in the Manage Links SubPanel.

Formatting

You can alter how WordPress displays the list of links from this category by modifying the text found in the following three text boxes. However, these options are only used by some themes. This is because only the Template Tags wp_get_links and wp_get_linksbyname respect these options, none of the others do.

Before Link

This string of characters will be inserted before every link in the list of links from this category.

Between Link and Description

Likewise, this string of charactes will be inserted between the name of each link and it's description.

After Link

And this string of characters will be insterted after ever link.

At the bottom of this section is the "Add Category" button. Click this button to save your link category.

Link Category Editing

When you edit a link category, the Link Categories SubPanel switches to this editing mode. The options available in this role are the same as in the Add a Link Category section of the SubPanel in its Link Category Listing and Adding role. The only difference is the save button, which now reads "Save Category Settings" instead of "Add Category".

Back to Administration Panels.