Collapsing Archives

Description

Create collapsible archives by year or month. Features include: link to archive pages, display of individual posts and support for custom post-types.

Demo

I use this plugin in my blog at https://blog.robfelty.com

Screenshots

Blocks

This plugin provides 1 block.

• Collapsing Archives A Gutenberg block to show a collapsible list of your posts organized by date

Installation

WIDGET INSTALLATION

The easiest way to use this plugin is as a widget.

After you have installed the Collapsing Archives plugin, then simply go the Appearance > Widgets section in wp-admin and add the Collapsing Archives Widget to whatever sidebar or widget section you like, and then configure to your heart’s content.

MANUAL INSTALLATION

It is also possible to use the plugin on any page you like with a little bit of PHP code. Simply change the following here appropriate (most likely sidebar.php):

Change From:

<ul>
     <?php wp_get_archives(); ?>
</ul>

To something of the following:

    <?php
     if( function_exists('collapsArch') ) {
      collapsArch();
     } else {
      echo "<ul>\n";
      wp_get_archives();
      echo "</ul>\n";
     }
    ?>

OPTIONS AND CONFIGURATIONS

$defaults=array(
  'noTitle' => '',
  'inExcludeCat' => 'exclude',
  'inExcludeCats' => '',
  'inExcludeYear' => 'exclude',
  'inExcludeYears' => '',
  'sort' => 'DESC',
  'showPages' => false, 
  'linkToArch' => true,
  'showYearCount' => true,
  'expandCurrentYear' => true,
  'expandMonths' => true,
  'expandYears' => true,
  'expandCurrentMonth' => true,
  'showMonthCount' => true,
  'showPostTitle' => true,
  'expand' => '0',
  'showPostDate' => false,
  'postDateFormat' => 'm/d',
  'postDateAppenc' => 'after',
  'accordion' => 0,
  'postTitleLength' => '',
  'post_type' => 'post',
  'debug' => '0',
  );

• noTitle
  • If your posts don’t have title, specify a string to show in place of the
    title
• inExcludeCat
  • Whether to include or exclude certain categories
    • ‘exclude’ (default)
    • ‘include’
• inExcludeCats
  • The categories which should be included or excluded
• inExcludeYear
  • Whether to include or exclude certain years
    • ‘exclude’ (default)
    • ‘include’
• inExcludeYears
  • The years which should be included or excluded
• showPages
  • Whether or not to include pages as well as posts. Default if false
• showYearCount
  • When true, the number of posts in the year will be shown in parentheses
• showMonthCount
  • When true, the number of posts in the month will be shown in parentheses
• linkToArch
  • 1 (true), clicking on a the month or year will link to the archive (default)
  • 0 (false), clicking on a month or year expands and collapses
• sort
  • Whether posts should be sorted in chronological or reverse
    chronological order. Possible values:
    • ‘DESC’ reverse chronological order (default)
    • ‘ASC’ chronological order
• expand
  • The symbols to be used to mark expanding and collapsing. Possible values:
    • ‘0’ Triangles (default)
    • ‘1’ + –
    • ‘2’ [+] [-]
    • ‘3’ images (you can upload your own if you wish)
    • ‘4’ custom symbols
• customExpand
  • If you have selected ‘4’ for the expand option, this character will be
    used to mark expandable link categories

• customCollapse

  • If you have selected ‘4’ for the expand option, this character will be
    used to mark collapsible link categories

• expandYears

  • 1 (true): Years collapse and expand to show months (default)
  • 0 (false): Only links to yearly archives are shown
• expandMonths
  • 1 (true): Months collapse and expand to show posts (default)
  • 0 (false): Only links to yearly and monthly archives are shown
• expandCurrentMonth
  • When true, the current month will be expanded by default
• expandCurrentYear
  • When true, the current year will be expanded by default
• showPostTitle
  • 1 (true): The title of each post is shown (default)
• showPostDate
  • 1 (true): Show the date of each post
• postDateFormat
  • The format in which the date should be shown (default: ‘m/d’)
• postDateAppend
  • after: The post date comes after the title (default)
  • before: The post date comes before the title
• postTitleLength
  • Truncate post titles to this number of characters (default: 0 = don’t
    truncate)
• post_type
  • post (default)
  • page
  • all (includes regular post types plus any custom post types – excludes
    pages, revisions, wp_nav_items, and attachments)
  • custom post type that you have registered (e.g. recipe)
• accordion
  • When set to true, expanding one year will collapse all other years.
    Expanding one month will collapse all other months in that year
• number
  • If using manually with more than one instance on a page, you can give
    unique ids to each instance with this option. For example, if you had
    one instance with number 1 and another with number 2, the ul for March
    2004 for number 1 would have an id of ‘collapsArch-2004-3:1’, while the
    id for number 2 would be ‘collapsArch-2004-3:2’
• debug
  • When set to true, extra debugging information will be displayed in the
    underlying code of your page (but not visible from the browser). Use
    this option if you are having problems

Examples

collapsArch('accordion=1&sort=ASC&expand=3&inExcludeCat=exclude&inExcludeCats=general,uncategorized')

This will produce a list with:
* accordion style expanding and collapsing
* shown in chronological order
* using images to mark collapsing and expanding
* exclude posts from the categories general and uncategorized

collapsArch('post_type=recipe')

This will produce a list with:
* only posts of type ‘recipe’
* shown in chronological order
* using images to mark collapsing and expanding
* exclude posts from the categories general and uncategorized

CAVEAT

This plugin relies on Javascript, but does degrade
gracefully if it is not present/enabled to show all of the
archive links as usual.

FAQ

How do I change the style of the collapsing archives lists?

The collapsing archives plugin uses several ids and classes which can be
styled with CSS. These can be changed from the settings page. You may have to
rename some of the id statements. For example, if your sidebar is called
“myawesomesidebar”, you would rewrite the line

sidebar li.collapsArch {list-style-type:none}

to

myawesomesidebar li.collapsArch {list-style-type:none}

If you are using the plugin manually (i.e. inserting code into your theme),
you may want to replace #sidebar with #collapsArchList

There seems to be a newline between the collapsing/expanding symbol and the

category name. How do I fix this? =

If your theme has some css that says something like

sidebar li a {display:block}

that is the problem.
You probably want to add a float:left to the .sym class

Reviews

This broke my website, unforunately [v. 6.4.3]

YahYah24 March 30, 2024

I just installed this one single plug-in to my website today and after doing so, immediately, the page the plug-in was set to work on … broke, or was disabled. It was still visible in my raw page listing, but even when I copied and pasted the URL directly, I still got a 404 Page Not Found error. I deleted the plug-in from the page but that didn’t help.I had to go to the plug-in directory where I installed it, and I had to deactivate it. The moment I did that – the page I put it on was immediately visible again.I hope this helps the developer. This plug-in does exactly what I need for my website. I’m supremely bummed. I’m using the Virtus theme (themeforest) and it’s version 6.4.3. Elementor 3.19.2

Last update broke it

petukhovsky January 29, 2024

Last update has broke it. Somehow the plugin start working as collapsing categories instead of collapsing archives.

Author is ignoring PHP 8.0 / 8.1 incompatibility

torstensbuechereckede March 19, 2022

The author has released several versions since PHP 8.0 release but just ignores existance of PHP 8.0 / 8.1 although that’s pretty easy to fix. I just did it by myself but now all the not working updates are always popping up. I don’t want to do the fix again and again.

Great until PHP 8

ober0330 March 19, 2022 5 replies

It works great except if you try to upgrade to PHP 8. The author uses {} to access some data elements instead of the standard []. You can fix it pretty easily but it would also be wonderful if the plugin was updated to fix this minor thing. I’d happily contribute a PR if the author had the code publicly somewhere (Github/etc.).

An error occurred

ackie00h March 15, 2022 4 replies

When I activate this plugin, an error occurred below. Warning: call_user_func_array() expects parameter 1 to be a valid callback, class ‘collapsArch’ does not have a method ‘enqueue_scripts’ in /home/customer/www/harupets.com/public_html/wp-includes/class-wp-hook.php on line 307 Now I disabled it. I confirmed it in the environment below. WordPress 5.9.2 Collapsing Archives 2.1.3 Other Plugins all disabled.

Incompatible with PHP 8.0

rkyburz September 30, 2021

The plugin worked flawlessly (sure, it feels like Blogger…) up to and including PHP 7.4.23. Sadly, switching to PHP 8.0 reveals a fatal flaw that breaks an entire WP site. I have deactivated the plugin, and now my WP 5.8.1 site works just fine with PHP 8.0.10

Contributors & Developers

Changelog

3.0.6 (2024.08.05)

• Sanitizing input for block.
• Verified works with WP 6.6
• Updated Readme a bit

3.0.5 (2023.12.07)

• accidentally messed up tagging version 3.0.4. Calling it 3.0.5 now

3.0.4 (2023.12.01)

• Got rid of deprecated __experimentalGroup
• Tested with WP 6.4.1

3.0.3 (2023.09.11)

• Fixed PHP warning about undefined key when changing style

3.0.2 (2023.06.04)

• Calling it stable version
• Tested with WP 6.2.2
• Known issue – does not work with Jetpack widget visibility settings

3.0.1 (2023.04.01)

• Fixed linkToArch option
• Fixed taxonomy type option
• Added SameSite attribute to cookies
• A bit of code cleanup

3.0.0 (2023.03.28)

• Converted to Gutenberg block to be usable by full-site editing themes
• Compatible with WP 6.2
• Got rid of dependency on jQuery (no more animations)

2.1.4 (2023.01.12)

• Fixed a different warning about enqueuing scripts

2.1.3 (2022.03.10)

• Fixed a deprecation warning about enqueuing scripts

2.1.2 (2022.03.10)

• Fixed an issue with the full-site editor

2.1.1 (2022.03.10)

• Compatible with WP 5.9.1
• Fixed some deprecated warnings

2.1 (2021.06.18)

• Compatible with WP 5.7
• Incorporated a number of code improvements from my other collapsing plugins
• Tested on WP 5.7.2
• Updated documentation a bit
• Added some screenshots and icons

2.0.5 (2017.08.17)

• Compatible with WP 4.8
• Cleaned up code some to reduce warnings

2.0.4 (2017.01.02)

• Compatible with WP 4.7
• Fixed bug with jquery compatibility
• Removed deprecated mysql debugging info
• Works with PHP 7

2.0.3 (2015.08.12)

• Compatible with WP 4.3

2.0.2 (2014.09.24)

• Fixed bug when expanding years but not showing month links, where the oldest posts were not getting displayed

2.0.1 (2014.09.05)

• Compatible with WP 4.0

2.0 (2012.04.09)

• now using all jquery for javascript stuff
• added accordion option
• added option to not use cookies
• Fixed display issues with IE
• Easier style handling
• Added support for custom post types

Older versions

• See changelog.txt