Intro.

If you require to divide your blog into sections, or, namely, a solution to organize "other sections" of your blog, the WordPress Devs, starting from version 3.x, started offering support for this feature (native support, that is).

Have a look at how my pwrusr.com blog is organized:

There are 3 menu items above.

According to my terminology, each menu item represents a blog "Section" of my site (I'm oversimplifying here, just to be clear).

Now, when you open a standard WP blog, you only get the default "Posts"-Section.

The default "Post"-Section allows you to cronologically post your stuff on your Home Page - easy, simply and effective.

Of course you can extend your blog with every plugin that comes into mind, but that's not the point.

The point is that you want a "New Section", that holds "the same post features" offered to you by the default WP engine (in cronological order & with the possibility to present multiple recent posts as a single page, aka "Archive").

Now, let me tell you that this is a good deal of a search if you're just a normal WP user!

If you wish to embark in this adventure then all you have to do is search for "Custom Post Type".

Among the results, you'll get suggestions inviting you to tamper with the code.

IF you don't know what you're doing, you can easily break your site. If in doubt, don't.
Also you don't want to lose the (magic) WP "update-ability"!

But I digress.

As I said, starting from WordPress version 3.x, the developers started offering native support for this feature.

Native means "from inside the original WordPress code", so you could simply hack & patch some "wp-files.php" and there ya go.

How-to make a new "Posts" Section on WordPress.

But why mess with the code when the community offers convenient plugins?

My favourite plugin in this case is "Custom Post Type UI" (from www.webdevstudios.com), which, as the name suggests, adds an UI to the standard (and natively supported) vanilla WordPress feature.

  • Obtain this plugin, install it and activate it as usual.

As soon as you do that & reload, your dashboard will present you a new "Custom Post Type" menu item.

  • Click on "Add New".
  • Choose a name for your new  Section ("Post type Name").
  • Fill-in the other labels if you prefer.
  • Open the "Advanced Label Options" and fill in the fields with the name of your new "Section" (my new Section, just in case, was called "About", this way I can easily post all my disgraces).

Don't click on "Create Custom Post Type" yet, you want the "Archive View", don't you?

Andrea's example of a Custom Post Type with Archive enabled.

The Archive View shows you the list of all your recent posts in one page (just like your blog home page).

To Enable the Archive View:

  • Click on "Advanced Options".
  • Set "Has Archive" to True.
  • Leave the rest as is (it should be ok for general use).
  • (Finally...) Click on "Create Custom Post Type".

Now reload your dashboard & you'll find a new Menu entry called "Post Type Name" (i.e.:"About").

That allows you to add new posts exactly as you would for your main blog posts.

Bonus.

  1. If you find you have problems with your nice URLs, then proceed as follows:
    Go to "Settings" -> "Permalink", then change your chosen "Common settings"to something else, Save Changes, then Select and reapply again your Permalink "Common Settings".
  2. Don't forget to enable access to your new Section from your Home Page!
    Make a new menu entry on your site's Home page then link the new "Section" to it (I won't document that since I use a non-standard menu handler).

Now that would allow you to have something like 2 blogs in one (or a blog in a blog, if you prefer!).

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