“Trying to get properties on a non-object” in PHP

Question

I\'m a WordPress theme developer and on a theme I\'m working on, I\'ve turned on debug mode and get this error inside a select drop-down box for the theme\'s options page. <

Answer 1

OK I see what you're saying. Earlier in my code I have this (overly simplified, just to show the important parts):

$news_categories = get_categories()  //pulls all of the categories from WordPress

        array ("minititle"      => 'Select the category you\'d like to use as your "Top Story" category.',
            "id"        => $shortname . "_top_story_category",
            "type"      => "cat_select",
            "options" => $news_categories)

This is where $value['options'] comes from. The code is part of a switch statement...

I would have to post the entire file in order to give the context, and it's quite long.