Can’t find your Category ID numbers in WordPress 2.5?  Here’s help.

There are many reasons why I don’t recommend WordPress 2.5… yet.

One reason is Category ID numbers. You can’t see them as easily in WordPress 2.5, and you’ll need those numbers for themes such as Branford Magazine and Mimbo.

(I still highly recommend the Branford Magazine theme, or the Mimbo theme, which provided much of the code for Branford Magazine’s basic design.)

Many of us are hoping that this WordPress issue will be fixed in the next WordPress upgrade. In the meantime, if you installed WP 2.5 (or your hosting service did), there are three ways to work around the problem: Rollover, click, or (as of late April 2008) with an Alpha plugin.

ROLLOVER

To find the Category number in WordPress 2.5, go to Manage > Categories. In that panel, roll your cursor over the category name for which you need an ID number.

The number will appear at the lower right corner of your screen.

Here’s an illustration:

In the example above, my “Design secrets” category’s ID number is 4.

Or, you can click on the category name to see the ID number.

CLICK

If you click on the category name as if you’re going to edit it, the category’s ID number will appear at the top of your screen, as a URL. The ID number is at the far right (end) of that URL.

Or, you can use a plugin that’s been released in April 2008, and — as of today (19 Apr 08) — is still in Alpha mode. (”Alpha” mode means that there may be significant bugs in this plugin, and you are taking a risk if you install it.)

PLUGIN

Oliver Schloebe has created a handy plugin to solve the problem. Though it is still in Alpha mode, I installed it and it worked fine for this website.

Important note: I do not intend to install this plugin at my larger websites until it is at least in Beta mode. If you install it and it causes problems with WordPress or your website, I cannot help you fix that.

The plugin is called Reveal IDs for WP Admin 2.5

Download, unzip, and upload/install it according to the instructions at that link.

Then, activate it in your Plugins tab.

Go to your Settings tab.

Uncheck everything on the list.

Save your changes.

Recheck the box that enables you to see the Category ID numbers. (As of 19 April, this part of the plugin is in Alpha mode.)

Save your changes.

Go to Manage > Categories and the ID numbers should show up to the right of your category names.

Here’s a screenshot of how it looks at this website:

As you can see, the ID number appears to the right of each category name.

TO FIND OUT MORE

To stay current on this issue, visit the WordPress Support forum for news. Search using words such as “category numbers 2.5″ and check the latest discussions about this problem.

Here’s one post about the issue: http://wordpress.org/support/topic/162394

Until issues such as this are resolved and all plugins updated for WP 2.5, I cannot recommend upgrading to 2.5 if you have a choice.

Obviously, I’ve tried it for this website and one that is hosted on another server, just to try it out. It works okay, and some features are improvements over 2.3.3. That said, if you’re a beginner, it’s better to stay with WordPress 2.3.3 if you can.

When WordPress 2.5 issues are more fully resolved, I will rewrite the Sites that Soar! ebook with illustrations showing WP 2.5 screens, as well as the current screenshots in the book.