Question on using custom structures for categories

Question

Im trying to create a topics "section" similar to what Justin Tadlock has on his site but i'm not sure how he is doing this. Categories? Tags? or what?

I tried changing the Category base to topics as the instructions state:

If you like, you may enter custom structures for your category and tag URLs here. For example, using topics as your category base would make your category links like http://local.dev/topics/uncategorized/.

Now assuming my category is "foo", when I visit http://local.dev/topics/foo/ I see the proper listing of articles categorized as "foo".

But when I back out to http://local.dev/topics/ i get ...nothing. Whereas I assumed I would get a list of all categories.

Again looking at Justin Tadlock's site, it appears each item in his "Topics Archive" is actually a tag?

How is this done?

Is he using a Custom taxonomy or what? How do I approach this?

Please advise.

--pkd

Answer 1

The simple and quickest solution is showing categories list by using sitemap plugin with short-code.

For example this plugin WP Sitemap Page. Install it and place shortcode on page.

Second option is create page template for category list. Using wp_list_categories()

Thanks

Answer 2

To get a list of categories when you visit yoursite.com/topics or even the default yoursite.com/categories (doesn't matter; it's not a link structure related issue) you have to have a template for this.

It's like a sitemap. If you want to show a sitemap on your front-end, you'll have to have a sitemap template.

In this case, it's a category archive what you're looking for. ;)