Exclude all pages except a few?

Question

I have a bunch of pages and I only want to include 2 or 3 pages on my main menu. How would I do that? Currently my code looks like this:

wp_page_menu('include=156,572,542&sort_column=menu_order&echo=0');

If I am going to insert exclude=x pages, it wouldn't make sense because there's just too many of them.

Please no plugin recommendation. I've tried some but they conflict with other things I do in this regard.

UPDATE Here's the full function:

function main_nav() {?>
<div id="access">
    <div id="sub-access">
        <div id="sub-sub-access">   
            <div class="skip-link"><a href="#content">"><?php _e('Skip to content', 'thematic'); ?></a></div>
            <?php echo preg_replace('/<ul>/', '<ul class="sf-menu">', wp_page_menu('include=11,13,7,9,4&sort_column=menu_order&echo=0'), 1);?>
        </div>
     </div>   
</div><!-- #access --> <?php
}

add_action('thematic_header','main_nav',9);

It's a custom version of Thematic's thematic_access() function. I don't know why it's behaving this way. I tried it on a new installation, it doesn't work still.

Answer 1

try

   ...
   echo preg_replace('/<ul>/', '<ul class="sf-menu">', 
       wp_page_menu(
         array(
          'include' => '11,13,7,9,4',
          'sort_column' => 'menu_order',
          'echo' => 0)), 1);

or

  ...
   echo preg_replace('/<ul>/', '<ul class="sf-menu">', 
       wp_page_menu(
         array(
          'include' => array(11,13,7,9,4),
          'sort_column' => 'menu_order',
          'echo' => 0)), 1);  

btw, there are better ways to add classes to html tags than using regexes like this...

Answer 2

The smarter way to do it would be to use WordPress 3.0's custom menus. replace wp_page_menu() with wp_nav_menu() and see how that works out for you.

Answer 3

This plugin claims to exclude pages from menus only, and provides a simple checkbox for excluding pages, perhaps it will help.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/exclude-pages/