Quick Tip : Replace The Horizontal Page Menu With The Categories in WordPress Navigation Bar

30th May 2010 | Posted by Eko S. | 15 Comments

In some wordpress theme, usually the category navigation menu often we get on the sidebar, but I think the position of the category navigation menu on the header section will be more beneficial, because it helps the reader to further explore our site content.
This of course also be beneficial for our site owners, because readers will be more comfortable for long, and this will make pageviews / impressions page of our site will increase.

Then these statistics we can offer to advertisers in order to put an ad on our site. Interested

But we will not display all the categories, because it will make a very tidy. In this article, also described a simple way to exclude categories from the navigation menu.

If you want to exclude the pages from the navigation menu, please see our previous article.

How To?

Step 1. Change the header.php file

Open file header.php from your theme folder. Look for
```
<?php wp_list_pages('title_li=&depth=1'); ?>
```

and replace with.

<?php wp_list_category('title_li=&depth=1'); ?>

Save it! This step will replace your pages with categories on menu navigation bar

Step 2. Exclude the categories
Do not show all the categories in the navigation menu, only display categories that you think would be useful to readers. Here are the steps :

Again look for

<?php wp_list_category('title_li=&depth=1'); ?>

Then change with

<?php wp_list_category('title_li=&depth=1&exclude='); ?>

Save it!
Next, find the category IDs. You can choose one of the following ways :
Manually
Go to Posts > Categories in your WordPress admin panel. Hover one of your categories. As you can see in this picture below our ID is 3 (for example).
Use the plugin
Or the other method, you can use this plugin. You’ll see ID of the categories automatically.

Enter your category ID in this code, like this

<?php wp_list_category('title_li=&depth=1&exclude=3'); ?>

For exclude more than one category, use comma between the category IDs.
```
<?php wp_list_category('title_li=&depth=1&exclude=3,10,12,146'); ?>
```
Save it! It’s done

I hope this tip useful! If you have any questions, concerns, suggestions, or comments, please do not hesitate to let me know.

10 Comments to “Quick Tip : Replace The Horizontal Page Menu With The Categories in WordPress Navigation Bar”

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Flinn says:

June 4, 2010 at 15:01

Hey Eko nice tut their for non coders,and something that people usually do not consider to write bout these days ,as most of us use highly configurable themes or are coders.

Reply
- Eko S. says:
  
  June 4, 2010 at 17:45
  
  I’m glad it helped…we always try to share from what we know about wordpress.
  Btw concise tips like this will we represent every sunday.
  Hi Flinn, thanks…nice comment, it motivates us
  
  Reply
Wordpress Themes says:

June 8, 2010 at 03:03

Nice fill someone in on and this mail helped me alot in my college assignement. Gratefulness you on your information.

Reply
solusi berpromosi says:

June 15, 2010 at 21:16

Wah bagus bener infonya. Akan kucoba. Thank fo sharing
Salam

Reply
- Eko S. says:
  
  June 16, 2010 at 00:26
  
  Makasih mas uda silaturrahim, semoga artikel-artikel kami bermanfaat.
  Salam kenal kembali dari Jogja
  
  Reply
Audrey says:

June 27, 2010 at 08:19

Hey Eko nice tut their for non coders,and something that people usually do not consider to write bout these days ,as most of us use highly configurable themes or are coders.

Reply
gouthami.b says:

July 6, 2010 at 04:05

Thanks a lot.You saved lot of my time.But step 1 doesn’t work in my theme.After replacing category with categories it’s working….

Reply
Tiffany says:

August 18, 2010 at 16:43

Category didn’t work for me either, but using the plural “categories” did.

Reply
gaming blog says:

September 1, 2010 at 00:19

hey thanx a lot buddy ,can u also tell me how to add pages on the top ,now that i have replaced categories (category dint work for me ,thanx to gautham.b) but now i want the pages to appear above fold ,any tip ?

Reply
- Eko S. says:
  
  September 1, 2010 at 00:33
  
  Hi,
  If you want to change the categories with pages, please change
```
<?php wp_list_category('title_li=&depth=1'); ?>
```
  with
```
<?php wp_list_pages('title_li=&depth=1'); ?>
```
  Hope this helps you
  
  Reply