Please deactivate before upgrading, then re-activate the plugin.
The collapsing Archives plugin creates a hierarchical list of archives organized by year, month, and post. The years and months can be expanded and collapsed dynamically, as you can see in the sidebar on this page. It includes a number of different options, including whether or not to display months and posts.
The plugin is hosted on the official wordpress repository at: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/collapsing-archives
If you have any questions, bug reports, or feature requests, please post a comment below.
Your appreciation
If you really like my plugins, please give them a nice ranking in the wordpress plugin repository (links above), or you can send me a donation via paypal below:
Bugs, Features?
Please discuss bugs and features on the forum
This is a relatively simple plugin that uses Javascript to
make the Archive links in the sidebar collapsable by year and/or month.
What’s new?
- 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
See the CHANGELOG for more information
Download
Latest version: Download Collapsing Archives v2.0 [zip]
Installation
IMPORTANT!
Please deactivate before upgrading, then re-activate the plugin.
MANUAL INSTALLATION
Unpack the contents to wp-content/plugins/ so that the files are in a
collapsing-archives directory. Now enable the plugin. To use the plugin,
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";
}
?>You can specify options for collapsArch. See options section.
WIDGET INSTALLATION
For those who have widget capabilities, (default in WordPress 2.3+), installation is easier.
Unzip contents to wp-content/plugins/ so that the files are in a
collapsing-archives directory. You must enable the Collapsing Archives
plugin, then simply go the Presentation > Widgets section and add the
Collapsing Archives Widget.
FAQ
Q. How do I change the style of the collapsing archives lists?
A. 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
Changelog
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
1.3.2 (2011.01.03)
- Fixed display bug when only one month in year
1.3.1 (2010.06.22)
- Fixed bug where months would not expand for current year when “expand
current year” was set to no (thanks to beardedgit for debugging help)
1.3 (2010.06.18)
- Storing post information in javascript array to reduce number of DOM
elements (and improve page loading speed) - Added option to select post date before or after title
1.2.2 (2010.01.28)
- Restricting settings page to authorized users
- Fixed expandYears option. Now when you show posts, but not months, the
year expands to show posts. - Updated javascript to fix cookie bug
- Switched from scriptaculous to jquery. Now no longer conflicts with
plugins which use mootools (for example featured content gallery)
1.2.1 (2009.06.22)
- Can now use manually in WP 2.7-
- Updated Spanish localization (thanks to Karin Sequen)
- Fixed problems with page load and cookies
1.2.beta (2009.06.07)
- Changed hide and show classed to collapse and expand to avoid CSS class
conflicts
1.2.alpha (2009.05.02)
- Widgets work with 2.8 API
- Can specify options directly in manual usage
1.1.4 (2009/04/22)
- Fixed html validation error when using manual version
- Spanish localization (thanks to Karin Sequen)
1.1.3 (2009/04/17)
- Fixed bug with unicode codes showing up instead of triangles
1.1.2 (2009/03/28)
- Span all on one line so it doesn’t mess up exec-php (thanks GeekLad)
- fixed some minor issues to get page to be valid xhtml
- no longer requires footer
- updated javascript file
- added option for custom expanding and collapsing symbols
1.1 (2009/03/07)
- fixed bug with truncating titles
- cleaned up code a bit
- fixed query for excluding categories
- fixed including only certain categories
- added option for “no title” – suggested by Brad Parker
- reduced number of queries by using get_permalink without id
- Improved internationalization
- fixed settings panel
1.0.5 (2009/01/21)
- changed query
- when using truncated titles, title attribute has full title
- using html ellipsis in truncate titles
- Got rid of comma before post date
- fixed some issues with settings page
- updated FAQ
1.0.4 (2009/01/15)
- fixed debug option
- style is set in database if the style column is not already there
1.0.3 (2009/01/09)
- don’t put an expand icon for years if “show months” is not selected
- add self class to post for additional styling
- fixed :before style info to restore default style
- fixed post title truncating
1.0.2 (2009/01/07)
- added javascript version
- not loading unnecessary code for admin pages (fixes interference with
akismet stats page - fixed settings page for manual usage
- fixed sort order option
1.0.1 (2009/01/06)
- Finally fixed disappearing widget problem when trying to add to sidebar
- Added debugging option to show the query used and the output
- Moved style option to options page
1.0 (2008.12.08)
- Integrating javascript with other collapsing plugins
- Non-widget version now works out of the box (defaults added to database
upon activation) - style can now be set with an option
- inline javascript moved to bottom for faster page loading
0.9.6 (2008.12.02)
- Minor bug fix with missing end tag when years expand to months, but
months do not expand to posts
0.9.5 (2008.12.01)
- fixed javascript bug for IE7
0.9.4 (2008.11.21)
- Improved handling of options for non-widget version
- Uses cookies to keep track of expanded and collapsed years/months
- tested with 2.7 beta3
0.9.3 (2008.11.04)
- Now can once again use as a widget or non-widget
0.9.2 (2008.11.01)
- Fixed truncating of title
0.9.1 (2008.10.28)
- added collapsArchMonth class for when posts are not shown
- added img directory
- calling it stable
0.9.alpha (2008.10.23)
- Can now use more than one widget
- Added option to animate collapsing and expanding
- Added option to use images as collapsing symbols
- Added option to have the year and month activate collapsing instead of
linking to the yearly/monthly archive
0.8.9 (2008.06.04)
- added option for different expand and collapse symbols (triangles, +/-)
0.8.8 (2008.05.27)
- added some more FAQ about stylesheets
- added option to only include certain years
0.8.7
- fixed sparse year problem (extra tags would get inserted after a year
with only one post which was in January) — thanks to [aishdas]
(http://wordpress.org/support/profile/444678) for pointing this out
0.8.6
- fixed bug which had wrong markup when months were turned off
0.8.5
- fixed bug (introduced in 0.8.2) that made the widget not show up after an
upgrade
0.8.4
- title of archives now shows up correctly using before_title and
after_title
0.8.3
- fixed bug introduced in version 0.8.2 trying to exclude categories. Would
break if no categories were being excluded
0.8.2
- Added option to exclude posts that belong to certain categories. So far
this is only working for posts that belong to a single category - Added option to change title in widget, and can now set all options from
the widget page - Now is condensed into one plugin
0.8.1
- Changed htmlentities to htmlspecialchars in formatting title text. Now
this should not mess up accented characters, but should escape quotes - Using unicode codes in css file for double quote character
0.8
- Verified to work with wordpress 2.5
- Now has custom styling option through the collapsArch.css stylesheet
- updated screenshots
- (Hopefully) fixed multi-language support for titles (put htmlentitites
back in) - moved javascript into collapsArch.php and got rid of separate file
0.7.8
- Got rid of htmlentities in post titles. Should display better now
0.7.7
- Now links should work with all sorts of permalink structures. Thanks to
Krysthora http://krysthora.free.fr/ for finding this bug
0.7.6
- fixed some more markup issues to make it valid xhtml
0.7.5
- fixed bug when turning off “month links should expand to show posts”
option
0.7.4
- fixed broken links
0.7.3
- posts now have the class “collapsCatPost” and can be styled with CSS.
Some styling has been added in collapsCat.php - removed list icons in front of triangles
0.7.2
- Added option to link to index.php, root, or archives.php
0.7.1
- Fixed comment count feature in post links
- Fixed display of date in post links
- Fixed automatic loading of options into database
0.7:
0.6.2:
- Added collapsing class to
- s with triangles for CSS styling
- Added style information to make triangles bigger and give a pointer
cursor over them - Added title tags to triangles to indicate functionality
0.6.1:
- Bug fix – fixed the previous year triangle pointing in the wrong
direction - Changed default options to reflect how I use it on my website
0.6:
- Changed name from Fancy Archives to Collapsing Archives
- Changed author from Andrew Rader to Robert Felty
- Added option to link to archives.php
- Added option to list in chronological or reverse chronological order
- Added triangles which mark the collapsing and expanding features
That is, clicking on the triangle collapses or expands, while clicking
on a month or year links to the archives for the said month or year - Changed behavior from starting all expanded and then collapsing on page
load to the opposite - Removed the rel=’hide’ and rel=’show’ tags, because they are not xhtml
1.0 compliant. Now uses the CSS classes instead
0.5:
- Added option to display Page entries with Posts inside the month links
- Cleaned up the list generation code
0.4:
- Added option: Trim post titles to a set size
- Added option: Optionally show ellipsis if a post title was shrunk
- Fix: Added fix for when page’s content-type is “application/xhtml+xml”
0.3:
- Huge rewrite: cleaned up javascript – one function does all the work,
javascript no longer visible in page source - Added options: month links are optional, set current year/month to be
expanded by default - Links now link to ‘javascript;’ instead of ‘#’
0.2.5:
- Fixed an issue with displaying comment counts in < WP2.0, fixed by using
WP’s internal comment counting function (Thanks Will)
0.2:
- Massive update, now has a dedicated options page (no more passing
options to function) - Month links can expand to show individual posts
Hi, i have search so lot times to leave indeed yours plugins collapsus, please the same for the links of friends, i have a lot of them it take to much place in the sidebar…
when i get some money i will give to you
I was trying out your archives widget. And it looks good and functional!
But i was wondering how to change the triangle into something else.
I find it too big for the layout.
could not find it in the css file..
Nebulous -
I have to confirm your direction reading skills:
From the readme.txt file
I hope that helps.
Rob
Nebulous,
Yes. That is a theme issue. You might try e-mailing the theme author, or if you don’t mind fooling around with code, take a look in the
wp-content/themes
directory. If you look in the default directory, you should see a file called archives.php. This is what sets up how the archives should be handled. You could do some copying and pasting into your themes archives.php file. Make sure you make a backup of the file first, and don’t fret if everything breaks, because you made a backup, so you can just copy the backup to archives.php, and live with the less than ideal handling of archives from your chosen theme.
Rob
How I change the link colors of collapsing categories? I don’t want the same colors of css stylessheet of my site in there. Please, what I should modify in the .css of plugin for change to colors that I need? Thanks.
@Kaleb – please read the faq
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/collapsing-archives/faq/
I am using your collapsing archives and collapsing categories, both exactly what I was looking for – thanks! I am having a slight problem with the archives, in May only 2 titles show up, but there are 6 posts. Any suggestions? thanks
@Kathy,
I looked at your site, and I noticed that all of the posts that don’t show up in May are in the “cleaning” category. There is an option to exclude certain categories from the archive listing if you like. Is it possible that you chose to exclude the cleaning category? Take a look at the options in the widget (or under settings).
I like your blog very much! I am 95% vegan (I bend my rules occasionally in social situations). You might might the food part of my website interesting as well.
Rob
Hello rob,
I am using collapsing archive on my blog, which have 12 authors and 2 administrators.
One author gave me the hint: “I can change the collapsing archive settings.”
Now my question:
Where can i change the capability? Only the administrators have the ability to change the collapsing archive settings.
Can you help me?
Thanks,
Steffen
Hello rob,
I am using collapsing archive on my blog, which have 12 authors and 2 administrators.
One author gave me the hint: “I can change the collapsing archive settings.”
Now my question:
Where can i change the capability? Only the administrators have the ability to change the collapsing archive settings.
Can you help me?
Thanks,
Steffen
PS: sorry my email-adress was wrong
@Steffen – you have to ask your administrator to change it for you, or ask for administrative privileges. That would be the case for modifying any settings, not just for the settings for this plugin.
Rob,
I checked; I do not have the plugin set to exclude any categories. I also tried changing the name of the category and deleting and reuploading the plugin. Still my “cleaning” posts won’t show. I added a test post for June in the cleaning category, and it didn’t show up either. Strange. Oh well, I am going to continue to use the plugin because I really like the set up.
I checked out your recipes and look forward to trying some. Your site is quite diversified. Cool!
Kathy
(Sorry if this is a duplicate I posted before, but don’t see my post)
I think that there is a little bug in the widget. When I don’t expand months to show the list of post, there is a missing at the end.
If you have a lot of posts, the performance is so-so from the archives loading the entire database every time.
I’m going to code it so that it writes to a single db row on publish time and just reads the one row each time it is rendered.
@Andrew,
That is a very good idea. If you need any help figuring it out, I would be happy to help. If you are willing to share your changes, I would be happy to add them to the official repository, and of course give you full credit.
Hi Rob,
Thanks for great plugin. But I have small problem because in my archives a collapse character doesn’t show up. Where is a problem? Thanks
Hi Rob,
Thanks for great plugin. But I have small problem, because in my archive widget a collapse character doesn’t show up. Do you know how fix it?
Many thanks.
Hi :)
Thank you for your great plugin .. but all I get is a SQL-Syntax-Error :(
“You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near ‘ON wp_posts.ID = .object_id LEFT JOIN ON .slug NOT IN (”) WHERE .term_taxonomy’ at line 4]
SELECT wp_posts.ID, wp_posts.post_title, wp_posts.post_date, YEAR(wp_posts.post_date) AS ‘year’, MONTH(wp_posts.post_date) AS ‘month’ FROM wp_posts LEFT JOIN ON wp_posts.ID = .object_id LEFT JOIN ON .slug NOT IN (”) WHERE .term_taxonomy_id = .term_id AND post_date != ’0000-00-00 00:00:00′ AND post_status = ‘publish’ AND post_type = ‘post’ ” GROUP BY wp_posts.ID ORDER BY wp_posts.post_date DESC”
… any idea how I can fix this ..?
Yours,
Mieze
Hi,
I have the same problem as Kathy – posts in one particular category do not show up. The category is definitely not listed in the categories to exclude, and in fact when I put some other categories in there to see if it made any difference, they were not excluded. Any ideas why this might be? I am using wordpress v2.6.
I get the same SQL error as Mieze above. I’ll try digging into it, but in the mean time, is there a required version of MySQL?
Thanks!
Meize – You need to upgrade your version of WordPress. I WAS running 2.1.2 and after upgrading to 2.6.1 the error went away.
It’s because the database format changed a bit I guess.
FreezerBurnt
Ah, thanks :) .. I upgraded a few days ago, but didn’t think of the plugin – now I tried again, and it works :) .. it’s just not collapsing the way I would like it to do, but that’s not a bug^^
First of all, thanks for this plugin.
That being said, here comes the ugly part… I upgraded this plugin to the newer version and it gives me the following error:
| Warning: extract() [function.extract]: First argument should be an array in /home/.gutsy/zenemig
| /zenblog/wp-content/plugins/collapsing-archives/collapsArchList.php on line 41
Any clue what could be the problem?
Thanks again for the plugin and for keeping it updated ;)
@ZenemiG,
Make sure to deactivate and then reactivate the plugin when upgrading. Normally it is not required, but this version has some major differences, and it works better this way.
Also note that in order to allow people to have multiple instances of the widgets on the same page, the plugin no longer works in a non-widget sense. If you want non-widget functionality, you have to stick with the older version.
I hope this helps.
Rob
Hi,
I’ve been using this plugin for a while now, but when I updated it yesterday, it now kills another part of my blog [tabber, which uses js].
Do you still have the older version available? I’d like to go back to it.
@Frank – all older versions are available from the download page – look for the “other versions” link.
I will look into possible conflicts with tabber. I have not used that plugin before.
Rob
I installed the plugin on WordPress 2.6.2 and it seems to be working fine, however the option to “Truncate Post Title to XXX characters” doesn’t seem to be working at all!
When I activate the checkbox and enter an arbitrary number of characters I would like all titles to be truncated to, nothing happens. When I go back to the widget preferences I see that the characters field is empty, so it doesn’t seem to be saving this particular field input. In other words the checkbox for the option remains selected, but the custom value of characters field is empty.
All other options are working perfectly…
I’d really appreciate some help with this since this is quite an important feature for me to be able to use!
John
@John,
Sorry about that. I fixed this in version 0.9.2
Rob
Rob, before anything, I’d like to commend you for the great job on this plugin! I’ve been using it on my client’s site and she can’t be any happier that it shortened her archives.
However, just recently, I encountered an odd problem. When I click on the arrow to expand the archives, that arrow disappears after it gets clicked! It didn’t happen before so I’m guessing there was a change somewhere in the site that’s causing the arrow to disappear once clicked. I tried to single out the code in the sidebar, remove all CSS, and removed all scripts from the header, but still can’t get it to work like it used to.
Do you think you can help me find the source of the problem? I’m using the 0.8.9 version of the plugin since the recent one is giving me a function.extract error similar to the guy who mentioned it here previously.
Link to the site is in my name and the archives are at the bottom part of the site. I’d really appreciate your help. Thanks!!
Mark
@Mark,
Thanks for the kind words. I assume you are not using the plugin as a widget. I recently figured out how to make it work as both again. I would try upgrading to version 0.9.3. Make sure you re-read the installation instructions, as they have changed a bit for manual installation. Let me know if that works.
Rob
I`ve got a problem with Version 0.93.
My blog has an estimated number of 580 postings, over three years. Now I’ve problems when the plugin generates the posting-lists for these years. Means, the whole rendering of the blog-site stops while the plugin is working. But it stops for several minutes, so users, and I, think about a freeze. Using an widget-cache does not take any positive effect. Its interesting, that I have also problems inside the widget-management of my admin-account. While rendering the actuall widget-list of my sidebar, it stops when the widget of “collapsing archives” should appear. Thats all what it does. Only deactivating of the plugin solves my problem. Any idea what could have happend? Till now I’m very satisfied with “collapsing archives” and I’m wondering why these problems occur now, after weeks of successfull using it. I’m looking for help … :-/
@transwarp – It would help if you gave me a link to your site. Or even better, create a test site that uses the same database, and let me take a look at that. What version of wp are you using?
Rob
Hi Rob. Thanks for helping.
I’m honest: I can’t really reproduce the problem I told you yesterday. There are still some rendering-problems with the widget-seperator in my sidebar. And I can’t use the plugin “WP widget cache” on your plugin. Alle entries concerning the cache are ignored. But as a summary: The performance-probs are gone, maybe a slowdown of my provider?
But feel free to take a look at http://www.johanndrees.de/blog. Thanks.
Hi. I thought I posted an answer, but maybe it’s lost. So, again:
Thanks Rob for your help.
After reconfigure of my widget cache, the blog speeds up radically. So my problem has changed a little bit. Means, after your Widget, I get a dislocated widget-separator (the line between the widgeds). Feel free to have a look on my blog-site (see website-info). Any idea what’s the problem?
Hi Rob, thanks for your help. Your spam-filter kills all of my postings, so let’s have try number three now.
After reconfiguring the widget cache, my blog speeds up dramatically. But now there’s a new problem with the widget-separator (the line between the widgets), because it’s a little bit dislocated after your widget. Any idea what may be the reason? Feel free to visit my blog (see website-info). Thanks.
Hi Rob. Your Spam-Filter kills all my postings, so please check the spam-archive. Thanks.
Additional info: I’m using wordpress 2.6.3 and all plugins with the most actuall version.
@transwarp Sorry about the zealous spam filter. I should really work on figuring that out. I don’t have an exact answer for the line displacement, but I would fool around with the css in collapsArch.css
Rob
Hi again, Robert
I’ve found a bug – some punctuation characters in the post titles are converted to “&#code” when listed by the widget in the sidebar – I’ve taken a screenshot, you’ll find it at http://www.zoto.com/beardedgit/img/1024×640/85a3efcb752f1a81a7c74e49e0b7d812.jpg
Is it fixable?
Cheers,
Stef
Actually, it’s even more curious – it only happens on post titles up to August 2007. From September 207 onwards the punctuation shows as it it supposed to.
Weird.
No matter. I can live with it.
Or even 2007…
Doh!
@Stef – thanks for the report. I will look into it. Also, I like your website style, especially what you have done with collapsing categories and archives.
Rob
whoo hoo! This Plug-In is fabulous.
There was a short thread on the WordPress Support forum from someone looking for this kind of Plug-In and NO ONE could recommend the correct Plug-In! After I posted trying to show that none of the “answers” were helpful the thread was “locked” no further posts allowed.
I eventually found Collapsing Archives by browsing through all the Plug Ins.
This is worth money, I will be sending you some. thank you thank you thank you!
Jim
hello, nice plugin but I have the following problems with WP2.6.3:
after deployment to wp-content/plugins/collapsing-archives, enable and run, the category list displays an error message about the fact that extract needs to work on an array. it looks like $option is not initialized. Also, when I change an option, the option is applied but not saved, when I come back to the option page it is empty. When I save my options, I get the following message : widget_number = %i%
I have probably setup something wrong. I’m in manual mode and my code is:
<?php
if( function_exists(‘collapsArch’) ) {
collapsArch(‘%i%’);
} else {
echo “\n”;
wp_get_archives(‘type=monthly&limit=12&show_post_count=1′);
echo “\n”;
}
?>
may you clarify something in the setup: Unpack the tar contents to wp-content/plugins/ so that the files are in a collapsArch directory.
shall the directory be called “collapsArch”? any other name?
@Jonx,
The plugin should be in the collapsing-archives folder. The collapsArch instructions are old. Sorry about that. I will update them. I am still figuring out how to get it work both as a widget and manually, so I appreciate your patience. I would try de-activating then re-activating. Then select your desired options, and see if that works. If that still doesn’t work, try deleting the “collapsCatOptions” row from the wp_options table in your database. If that doesn’t work, then I am not sure where to proceed.
Rob
No problem. I still have the problem. I’ll try resting the settings like you sugested. Thank you.
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Hi there.
I’m having a problem with this not working in Internet Explorer. There seems to be an error in the javascript.
It says ClassName is null?
THanks
There is a bug in this widget (I’ve already talk about it some months ago).
When we have the option “Show Month Link” checked, and the option “Month Links should expand to show Posts” unchecked, there are a and a tags missing in the end.
I’ve solved the problem with the following change in the file collapsArchList.php:
389a390,393
> elseif( $showMonths==’yes’ ) {
> echo ”
> “;
> }
@Rui,
Thanks for bugging me about that again. I think your code got a bit mangled. I used a slightly different method of fixing it, but it should be fixed now in 0.9.6
Rob