LAPDI Featured Categories

Description

Let A Pro Do IT!’s (LAPDI) Featured Categories plugin allows you to add featured categories with images to your blog’s website. Featured categories have three (3) layouts and include category thumbnails and scrolling category gallery.

Shortcodes

Add a Featured Categories to posts and pages by using a shortcode inside your text or evaluated from within your theme. You may override page/post Featured Categories options with shortcode attributes defined on the plugin’s settings page.

• [tsp-featured-categories] – Will display posts with the default options defined in the plugin’s settings page.
• [tsp-featured-categories title="Featured Categories" title_pos="below" number_cats="3" taxonomy="category" shrink_fit="Y" cat_ids="5,3,4" cat_type="all" show_text_categories="Y" hide_empty="1" hide_desc="N" max_desc="60" layout="0" parent_cat="3" box_width=500 box_height=300 order_by="count" thumb_width="80" thumb_height="80" before_title="" after_title=""] – Will override all attributes defined on the plugin’s settings page.

Screenshots

Installation

BEFORE YOU BEGIN: Requires the installation and activation of LAPDI Easy Dev Latest Version

1. Upload tsp-featured-categories to the /wp-content/plugins/ directory
2. Activate the plugin through the Plugins menu in WordPress
3. After installation, refer to the LAPDI Featured Categories settings page for more detailed instructions on setting up your shortcodes.
4. Featured Categories widgets can be added to the sidemenu bar by visiting Appearance > Widgets and dragging the LAPDI Featured Categories widget to your sidebar menu.
5. Add some widgets to the sidemenu bar, Add shortcodes to pages and posts (see Instructions)
6. View your site
7. Adjust your CSS for your theme by visiting Appearance > Edit CSS
8. Adjust the Sliding Gallery settings, if necessary, by visiting Plugins > Editor, Select LAPDI Featured Categories and edit the tsp-featured-categories.css and js/gallery-scripts.js files
9. Manipulating the CSS for #makeMeScrollable and #tsp-featured-categories entries changes the gallery and category styles respectfully

FAQ

I’ve installed the plugin but my posts are not displaying?

1. Make sure the folder /wp-content/uploads/ has recursive, 777 permissions
2. Make sure you are listing all categories and/or parent_cat is empty or the parent_cat has children categories.

What is a taxonomy?

A taxonomy is simply a name given to a group of objects in WordPress. Since this plugin now features multiple taxonomies (other than ‘category’) in version 1.2.8, you can now enter custom taxonomies to display on your web pages.

Which new category taxonomies does the new version 1.2.8 use?

It really depends on how well the plugin author follows protocol. So far we have tested it with WooCommerce product categories and LMS course categories and it works fine. However if the plugin author does not store the course image under the meta_key ‘%thumbnail_id’ you will never be able to display the images for your categories.

I installed the new version 1.2.8 and I entered a category taxonomy but it doesn’t display?

This simply means this category type is not supported.

How do I test different category taxonomies with the new version 1.2.8?

1. If your preferred plugin has a ‘Categories’ section for items (ie Events, Videos, Products) and it also allows you to add category details (ie images, description, title) there is a good chance its supported.
2. Click on the category, in the browser you will see “?taxonomy=XXX” where XXX is the new category taxonomy you can use.
3. Enter this taxonomy in your widget or your shortcode for LAPDI Featured Categories
4. If #1 was true but it still doesnt work, it means that the author didn’t follow normal protocals when storing category data and it wont be functional.

How can I display category images at run-time?

1. You can add similar code to your PHP file. This will display the category title, description and thumbnail at runtime. Remember you can use shortcodes to display category information at design time.

           <div class="row" style="margin: 20px 0px;">
               <div class="2u">
                   <?php 
                       // get category ID
                       $cat_id =  get_cat_ID( single_cat_title(null,false) );
   
                       // get options for tsp featured categories
                       $options = get_option('tsp-featured-categories-option-term-data');
   
                       // check to see if the category has term data
                       if ( array_key_exists( $cat_id, $options )):
                           if ( $options[$cat_id]['image'] != null ):
                               // display the image
                   ?>      
                               <img class="image" src="<?php echo $options[$cat_id]['image'];?>" width="125" height="125" border="0">
                   <?php
                           endif;
                       endif;
   
                   ?>
               </div>
               <div class="10u">
                   <h2><?php _e("Browsing category", "site5framework"); ?> / <span><?php single_cat_title(); ?></span></h2>
                   <h4><em><?php echo category_description(); ?></em></h4>
               </div>
           </div>
   

Reviews

Absolutely GREAT Plugin

Peter March 26, 2017

TSP Featured Categories is an absolutely GREAT plugin. I say this without reservation!! It now supports custom taxonomies. The developers added this feature this evening and it works like a charm on my wordpress install. If you have a website featuring photos or videos and wish to show the categories of those custom post types (custom taxonomies) then this is the plugin to use. I haven’t found another plugin like this. Great Job!!

Easy to use and looks good

giorgissimo September 1, 2016 1 reply

This is great –?perfect for a neat box of category links (recipes by course) for my wife’s food blog. Only issue is that the support pages point me elsewhere, but the link is broken!

Simple and easy to use

lazygirlcreations February 7, 2017

This is another plugin from TSP that I recommend to my clients.

cannot add image

Den999 February 7, 2017

Can not add image to category, becouse no option “Site URL” in wordpress uploader. “Attach image” (in uploader) not working. So, no images.

Contributors & Developers

Changelog

1.3.0

• Maintenance

1.2.9

• Enhancement: Requires v2.0.0 of LAPDI Easy Dev

1.2.8

• Require: LAPDI Easy Dev 1.3.5 or higher
• Feature: Added in the ability to use featured categories for custom taxonomies
• Feature: Add ability to hide categories with no images

1.2.7

• Bug: Required update from version 1.2.6
• Fix: Fixed issue with SmoothScroll Gallery
• Fix: Upgraded SmoothScroll Gallery

1.2.6

• Bug: Working on issue with SmoothScroll Gallery

1.2.5

• Enhancement: Improved settings UI

1.2.4

• Enhancement: Using only LAPDI Easy Dev (Pro version no longer available.)
• Enhancement. Option to turn Shrink Boxes to Fit off

1.2.3

• Fixed bug: Fixed bug to handle null options

1.2.2

• Fixed bug: Removed the use of Pro Skeleten which caused pages to default to size of 960px

1.2.1

• Enhancement: Set max width for horizontal display of categories
• Enhancement: Include instructions on how to display categories at runtime
• Enhancement: Allow spaces between commas when listing category IDs
• Enhancement: Replace shortcode setting with shortcode generator

1.2.0

• Fixed bug. Correctly locates LAPDI Easy Dev.

1.1.9

• Fixed bug, incorrect logic with title_pos in readme, config & templates

1.1.8

• New Feature. Added new attribute title_pos for title placement options.
• New Feature. Category image is now clickable.

1.1.7

• Enhancement. Added new attribute cat_ids to support specific categories

1.1.6

• Enhancement. Updated support link

1.1.5

• Removed inline function from widget_init hook to support older versions of PHP.

1.1.4

• Required fix to properly load media upload script.

1.1.3

• Required fix to properly store new widget/shortcode attributes into database. (Update to Easy Dev 1.2.2).

1.1.2

• Added back in assets folder

1.1.1

• Fixed issues with encrypted libraries.

1.1.0

• Now uses Easy Dev Pro for easy plugin development, #bringbackOOD
• No longer uses a seperate termsdata table in WP database, all data will be copied over on upgrade
• Handled all PHP notices
• Renamed attributes to prevent red spell checks when editing (old attributes still supported)
• Decreased plugin size by using Easy Dev

1.0.3

• Updated path for smarty compile and cache directories. User no longer required to change directory permissions.

1.0.2

• Fixed bug that caused images to not be added to posts.

1.0.1

• Checks for existence of parent settings menu before overwriting it
• Added in default images. LAPDI Plugins menu icon missing.

1.0

• Launch