paulruckerart

Hello, and thanks to everyone who responded to this thread. I am updating with content about some of the actions I have taken since the last post, mostly for the benefit of anyone else in the future who has a similar need and comes across this thread. (Especially if they are still in the not-ready-to-code zone like me. I am describing my steps in detail for that reason.)

(Note– I am using Gutenberg blocks.)

The solution that worked best for me was to use Alan’s first suggestion, which was to manually implant “buttons” on every (static) page that needed previous/next navigation. The pages have an identical consistent format: (full) image/descriptive text. I created a header block (H4) under the descriptive text with a left-pointing triangle, the word “previous”, a vertical line, the word “next” and a right-pointing triangle. The triangles were created by using right-click to access “symbols and emojis” which has a couple of choice for basic arrows. (This was easier for me than trying to code or to add arrows from elsewhere.) The left triangle and the word “previous” were hyperlinked to the URL of the previous page, the right triangle and the word “next” were hyperlinked to the next page.

(I had the hyperlinks for each page already pasted into a text document to speed up the copying too.)

I also put a “return to [name] gallery” link (as a paragraph block) below this “previous/next” line.

Editorskit is a plugin which has helped me expand my formatting choices with content and blocks; it adds a “copy block” option to block editing choices which made it very easy to just copy-paste the exact formatting of my previous/next header block and my “return to gallery” block to every page within a specific gallery. (Note: it will copy hyperlinks also.)

Though it took some time, it was worth it to me because this gave me what I needed with the skills I already have, so I can move on. It will probably be worth it for anyone who has less than 40-50 static pages to link together at a time. (I have read posts where some have hundreds to link together, which might be very time consuming with this method.)

Also, a cautionary note: on the subdomain where I was practicing my approach, I had originally uploaded a couple of very outdated plugins called “Next Page” and “Next Page not Next Post” which were the only plugins I could find that seemed to do this kind of function. They wound up screwing up my cache plugin and creating a lot of error messages. It took a few different maintenance logins to clear them out and fix the problem. Moral: don’t upload un-updated plugins! It’s not worth it.

I don’t know if you have any advice about where to go to find a developer for this sort of project, but with the button block– is it just a matter of pasting in the URL for the pages in the button block? Do they have back/forward arrow views?

Thanks for your help.

I don’t want to convert all of my pages to post, I wanted the actual pages to be static in their content. I would like to work with the pages, but I am not understanding very well your suggestions.

How do I add the buttons you are talking about in your first option?

For the second and third options, my static pages are grouped under parent pages, but I’m not following how I would implement these. What would the custom coding have to look like? (Etc.) Can you explain a little more– the only code I have worked with so far is pasting Paypal button code into html blocks, I have not done any custom coding at all so far.

Thank you so much for such a fast and helpful answer! I will check it out. Hopefully the free version has that capacity. (I am waiting until I have my way around this issue before going with paid versions or paid templates.)

Any other suggestions from any other quarter are also welcome.

Thanks, Andrew– I think your last comment is illuminating about how the multiple kinds of usage of this word (in the site-building context of WordPress) overlap somewhat and thus lead to a certain confusion for me about what is really meant. Code is what everything is built out of (on the HTML level).

It’s almost like talking about how something is built on the molecular level, versus the engineering (design) level, versus the construction (manufacturing) level. “Elements” can be used in all of these contexts, it looks like.

So my last question for clarity– in the example of the “vc.wpbakery” link they talk about offering “content elements”– in that instance, is this a synonym for “plugin”? And can that also mean “widget” or “content areas” contained w/in plugins, at the same time? Thanks for your help.

When I googled “elements in wordpress” after seeing the word used in print and in some online tutorials in different, but seemingly overlapping ways, these were some of the results I got when trying to find a basic definition

https://vc.wpbakery.com/features/content-elements/
(“elements” is presented in a way that seems so similar to “widget” that I don’t see what the difference might be)

https://www.wpexplorer.com/elements-wordpress-back-end/
(in this one, “elements” is used to describe the basic apparatus of WP for the user, from the dashboard on down.)

The other, more common usage, is when people are using “elements” in a very general way to literally denote the general elements of making something (and it just happens to be a WP site).

So, is “elements” a synonym for “type of content” (widget or plugin) or does it mean “piece of WordPress’ machinery” (dashboard, etc.) or is it just a word that people are using as it suits them? I see the word used all over the place as if people should just “know”….