$5
Only display sub-nav if present

Hi Experts,

I built a custom page template that uses an if/else statement to display the child pages as a 'sub-nav' if there are child pages present. This logic works fine if you are on the parent page, but once you click on one of the child pages, the sub-nav goes away. How can I modify my code so that the sub-nav will show on all pages within the section?



<?php $children = wp_list_pages('&child_of='.$post->ID.'&echo=0'); if($children) : ?>

<div class="center">

		<div id="horizontal_nav">

		<ul>

		<?php

		if($post->post_parent)

		$children = wp_list_pages("sort_column=menu_order&depth=1&title_li=&child_of=".$post->post_parent."&echo=0"); else

		$children = wp_list_pages("sort_column=menu_order&depth=1&title_li=&child_of=".$post->ID."&echo=0");

		if ($children) { ?>

		<?php echo $children; ?>

		<?php } ?>

		</ul>

		</div><!-- end horizontal_nav -->

	</div><!-- end center -->

<?php endif; ?>

WP Answers | 03/26/10 at 12:25am | Edit

custom template, wordpress, wordpress theme

(2) Possible Answers Submitted...

Last edited:
03/26/10
12:47am
Brian Richards says:
A simple way would be to modify the conditional at the very beginning of the statement to also include a check for the parent ID:
```
<?php $children = wp_list_pages('&child_of='.$post->ID.'&echo=0'); if($children) : ?>
```
becomes
```
<?php

$children = wp_list_pages('&child_of='.$post->parent.'&echo=0');

if(!$children) { $children = wp_list_pages('&child_of='.$post->ID.'&echo=0'); } 

if ($children) : ?>
```
First it uses the post's parent id, and if it doesn't have a parent then we use the current page ID. Everything else runs as normal.

Previous versions of this answer: 03/26/10 at 12:43am
Last edited:
03/26/10
12:55am
Buzu B says:
Well that is just normal since when you open the child page, the if returns false and the code within it is not executed.

You will have to use

get_post_ancestors($post->ID);

to find out if the post you are currently reading has a parent. if it does then you get the child posts of the current post's parent just as you already do.

try with something like this:
```
$ancestors = get_post_ancestors($post->ID);

if(!empty( $ancestors )){

   $parent = $ancestors[0];

   $children = wp_list_pages('&child_of='.$parent.'&echo=0');

   //print your children posts here...

}
```