WP-SNAP! WordPress Plugin
What Is WP-SNAP!?
WP-SNAP! (WordPress System for Navigating Alphabetized Posts) creates an alphabetical listing of post titles on a Category or Page template file. Navigation through the listings WP-SNAP! generates is accomplished using the alphabet itself. (For example, if a site visitor clicked on the letter D, any post titles that began with that letter would be showcased.) WP-SNAP! will work on any Wordpress 2.1.x or higher site, but is particularly useful managing glossaries, indexes, reviews, or directories. Since it is said that a picture is worth a thousand words, here’s a screenshot of WP-SNAP! in action:
WP-SNAP! offers three different navigational styles and integration with both custom permalinks and the Wordpress loop. Plugin options can be managed both site-wide and on the template itself with results either restricted to one category or broadened to include child categories as well. The clever web developer should have no problem seamlessly integrating WP-SNAP! into their latest project. Options have also been added to allow the customization of css class names and the appearance of html mark-up.
How To Configure WP-SNAP!
- Click on the link to the right to download the WP-SNAP! WordPress Plugin, extract it and upload it to your WordPress Plugins folder on your site.
- Activate the Plugin from the WordPress Administration Plugins tab.
- Edit the category templates your Theme uses, such as category.php, and add the following code above the start of the Wordpress Loop:
<?php if (function_exists('wp_snap')) { echo wp_snap(); } ?> - Copy the CSS example below and paste it into your WordPress Theme stylesheet (you can style it better later).
- Upload the files and refresh the category page on your WordPress blog to see it in action.
- For further customization, go to the Plugins > WP-SNAP! panel and change the alphabetical structure to something different and click Update Options. You may also change the categories to be displayed and the menu navigational structure by passing variables as a query-string to the plugin like so:
<?php if (function_exists('wp_snap')) { echo wp_snap('arguments'); ?>There are currently four possible arguments: Category (’cat’), Include Category Children (’child’), Navigational Menu Style (’menu’), and First Load (’firstload’). Category must equal a category number from your WordPress installation, Include Category Children must equal true or false as to whether to include child categories (the default value is false), Navigational Menu Style must equal a number between 1 and 3 (corresponding with the three navigational styles offered in the admin options panel), and First Load must equal ALL, NONE or RECENT and will affect how WP-SNAP! displays posts/tags when it is first called on a template. Note that if RECENT is selected, the number of recent posts/tags to display can be controlled from the admin options page. For instance, to create a navigational menu for all posts in category 15, including child categories, using the default menu navigational style, and displaying recent posts on first load, WP-SNAP! would be called like this:
<?php if (function_exists('wp_snap')) { echo wp_snap('cat=15&child=true&firstload=recent'); } ?>To create a navigational menu for the current category, excluding child categories and using navigational menu style 3, WP-SNAP! would be called like this:
<?php if (function_exists('wp_snap')) { echo wp_snap('menu=3'); } ?>To create a navigational menu for all categories, using default navigational menu style, WP-SNAP! would be called like this:
<?php if (function_exists('wp_snap')) { echo wp_snap('cat=all'); } ?> - Test it out and enjoy!
Note: For the Plugin to work, you must have access to edit your WordPress Theme files. You must also have a category.php template file in your WordPress Theme. If you do not, you can create one following the instructions on the WordPress Codex for creating a category template file.
CSS Styling
It should be noted that this plugin does not inject any css styling information, so it is up to the user to add the appropriate class information to the Wordpress Theme css stylesheet. Here is some sample code to get you started:
ol.snap_nav {
display: inline;
float: left;
clear: both;
list-style: none;
}
ol.snap_nav li {
display: block;
float: left;
padding: 0 2px 10px 0;
}
ol.snap_nav li a {
font-weight: bold
}
ol.snap_nav li.snap_selected a {
cursor: text;
}
ol.snap_titles {
clear: both;
display: block;
border: 0;
list-style: none;
}
Feedback
This plugin thrives on user feedback. Praise, ideas, and bug reports are all welcome. Use the comment form below to let me know what you think. Please keep in mind that I am not paid to work on this plugin and that delays between updates can and will occur. Please do not post questions about when the next update will be released. I appreciate your enthusiasm, but your comment will be deleted. If there is a significant delay between releases, I try to post a timeframe of when the next update can be expected.
Thank You
My thanks to Lorelle VanFossen for reviewing my plugin and allowing me to reuse her instructions on this page.
Change Log
- 06.2008.10 Version 0.8.5
- Added international language file support
- Changed the method for passing data to the plugin
- Tracked down bugs
- 06.2008.08 Version 0.8.4
- Made the plugin compatible with Wordpress’s new tagging system
- Corrected problem with listing recent posts
- 04.2008.03 Version 0.8.3
- Fixed a small — but significant — typo
- Moved the administrative submenu to plugins.php
- Added the ability to display All/None/Recent posts on first load
- 12.2007.02 Version 0.8.1
- Fixed incompatibility with PHP 4
- 11.2007.28 Version 0.8
- Added support for fancy URLs
- 10.2007.04 Version 0.7.3
- Fixed error with Wordpress 2.3 database call
- 09.2007.28 Version 0.7.2
- Made database call compatible with Wordpress 2.3
- 06.2007.02 Version 0.7.1
- Fixed error with database call
- 05.2007.30 Version 0.7
- Fixed issue preventing the display of more than 10 posts
- Fixed issue with sorting uppercase/lowercase post titles
- Restored ability to pass a category to the plugin
- Added ability to include category children in returned results
- Added ability to display all categories
- Added ability to change navigation style when calling the plugin
- Added support for Gengo (hopefully)
- 05.2007.12 Version 0.6.2
- Restored the ability to exclude first words from being alphabetized
- Cleaned-up some instructional text in the options menu
- 01.2007.21 Version 0.6.1
- Fixed a minor error with the $wp_snap_category variable
- 01.2007.20 Version 0.6
- Rebuilt the entire plugin to be better, stronger, faster
- Changed how results are displayed; plugin now plays well with the Wordpress loop
- Removed option to pass a category number directly to the plugin, making it incompatible with Pages (feature to return if requested)
- Added nonce protection to the admin options panel
- Added option to group posts beginning with a number under ‘#’
- Fixed unencoded ampersands
- 09.2006.20 Version 0.5.4
- Updated WP-SNAP! to ignore posts with post-dated timestamps
- 08.2006.02 Version 0.5.3
- Fixed an error that affected certain navigational menu styles
- 08.2006.01 Version 0.5.2
- Updated alphabetization to accomodate accent marks; still needs refinement
- Fixed a logic error with the post title sort loop
- 06.2006.07 Version 0.5.1
- Squashed some bugs in the new ignore filter
- 06.2006.06 Version 0.5
- Words can now be filtered from the alphabetization process from the WP-SNAP! admin options menu
- 06.2006.01 Version 0.4
- Added ‘#’ to catch category entries beginning with non-alphanumeric characters
- Tweaked the code here and there
- Fixed the WP-SNAP! plugin url on the admin options page
- 05.2006.13 Version 0.3.1
- Fixed the url structure of the navigation when used on a Page
- Added ‘apply_filters’ to the post excerpt
- 05.2006.08 Version 0.3
- Plugin no longer displays excerpts for password protected posts, if the viewer is unauthorized
- If there is no excerpt for a post and excerpts are turned on, plugin now creates an excerpt from the post content
- Fixed a typo
- 03.2006.29 Version 0.2
- Added the ability to pass a category number directly to the plugin, making WP-SNAP compatible with Pages
- 03.2006.29 Version 0.1
- Initial Release
Tags: navigation, plugin, WordPress
Comments
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Frequently Asked Questions
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When will the next version of your plugin be released?
As soon as I find the time, I will update the plugin and release a new version. I understand how frustrating it can be to be so close to having the perfect Wordpress installation only to be held up by a plugin that just needs a little more work to be exactly what’s needed. However, please remember that I am not paid write this plugin and that, like you, I have a family and responsibilities that extend far beyond this little piece of code. I really appreciate your enthusiasm, but if you wish to reap the benefits of my freely given labor, then you must be satisfied with doing so on my timetable. Otherwise, if you simply cannot wait, you are more than welcome to modify and extend the capabilities of my plugin yourself.
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Why do the results WP-SNAP! returns look funky? Why is it numbering every item?
A web page is composed of two parts: a document containing HTML code and a document containing styling code (known as a Cascading Style Sheet, or CSS for short). Because WordPress templates can look so drastically different from one another, I have intentionally avoided injecting any CSS information into WP-SNAP! However, I have included several ID selectors (that can even be modified from within wp-admin) that should allow you to style WP-SNAP! to look however you’d like. Those numbered lists? You can turn them off. I do ask that you try to refrain from asking me CSS related questions — while I would love to help you, my time is limited. If you would like to learn more about CSS, I suggest visiting A List Apart or Vitamin.
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I tried using your plugin, but it just won’t work. What am I doing wrong?
Unfortunately, I don’t have the time to troubleshoot every installation of this plugin. However, if you believe you have discovered a bug, I encourage you to post a comment to my website and I will reply as soon as I can. I do request that you be as specific as possible when asking for assistance. Please provide a detailed account of the steps you took that resulted in the error you encountered so that I can try to reproduce it and more quickly deduce how to fix it.
Gene —
I’m not sure I understand what you mean by “letter group.” But the answer is probably no.
February 19th, 2008 at 12:27 am
Is it possible to use this plug-in to create a list of subpages on a current page?
Let’s say I have a page called Games and have 50 or so subpages underneath that. I was hoping to be able to call this plug-in in the page template I’m using for “Games” to list all of the subpages under it alphabetically (in groups A-F, etc.).
I tried doing this multiple ways, but nothing seemed to work. It’s entirely possible I’m just misunderstanding something and it doesn’t do this at all… I figured I’d ask.
February 23rd, 2008 at 11:10 am
Tony — No, the plugin will not list Pages.
February 24th, 2008 at 12:11 pm
OK, thanks Nathan. I’ve figured out some other ways to use it and it’s working great. Thanks for this.
February 24th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
Hi
I installed this today with no problems, added the css and the line to the category.php
Made a category for book reviews. Added three posts in that category to test it out.
A-Z index is horizonal along the top and B and H are highlighted, which is correct, but regardless of whether I click on B or H it always displays the latest post (which is an H) and has previous posts listed below that (another H and a B post)
When I click on B on the A-Z I should get the B post, but I still just get the latest post in that book review category, which is an H post.
Did I do something wrong?
thanks for your help
February 25th, 2008 at 9:35 am
Yes, you did something wrong.
Is your category.php file customized in any way? If so, start again with a clean category.php file and get WP-SNAP! to work, then add your stuff back in until it breaks.
February 25th, 2008 at 6:53 pm
great plug-in! just one question… how to make it work with alphabets in languages that use diacritics i.e. in my example Croatian?
February 26th, 2008 at 5:56 am
I second Nora’s suggestion. Is there a chance for supporting ČĆŠÄŽÄÃŘÔÜ…?
And can you make it to list tags not only categories?
Geat plugin.
March 1st, 2008 at 5:48 am
Hi Nathan,
Is there a way to make your plugin work with the WHOLE blog and not only under the categories?
I’m looking for a way to navigate according to the name of the post for a project where I’m using WP as a CMS.
March 1st, 2008 at 2:41 pm
Nora & Andrej — I have sent you each an email regarding internationalization. Since I do not know your language, or Cyrillic, I will need assistance.
Moises — Yes. It’s in the instructions above: echo wp_snap(ALL).
March 1st, 2008 at 2:54 pm
In that case it is not working because that’s how I was calling the function… Do you have any debugging code or some way to test it out?
If you would like to take a look at the website just send me an email and I’ll give you the URL (I don’t want to publish it yet).
Thanks!
March 1st, 2008 at 4:21 pm
Moises — Start over. Turn off all of your plugins. Use fresh template and call wp_snap(ALL). It will work. Start turning your plugins on one-by-one. Then, start adding features back into the template. When it breaks? There’s the problem.
March 1st, 2008 at 4:38 pm
Hmmm… I did tried disabling all the plugins.
I’m sure the problem is in the theme. Is there any requirements? It is a custom made theme from scratch. When I click on one of the letters (that part is working fine), I always end with the home.php template instead of the archive.
Any ideas?
March 1st, 2008 at 7:58 pm
Moises — Unfortunately, I do not have the time to solve this problem for you. I do not know of any problem with the plugin that could be causing your issue. If you discover one, please let me know and I’ll work to fix it.
March 2nd, 2008 at 8:40 am
Since I do not know your language, or Cyrillic, I will need assistance.
nice
March 4th, 2008 at 6:24 am
Tooootally awesome plugin! I wanted to make a glossary using a wordpress install and this totally fits the bill.
My only problem is that if I have wpsnap in my single post template, all my individual post urls lead to the lowest one in the alphabet. Clicking the letters is fine- it shows a list of posts the way it’s supposed to, its only when you click on one of the posts that the problem exists. it’s at http://www.mystrategicplan.com/glossary
I’m sure I’m screwing something up, but I’d totally appreciate your help.
March 5th, 2008 at 8:34 pm
Hi Nathan
I’m having a little problem with unencoded Ampersands in Wordpress post titles. I’m using the latest version both of your plugin and WordPress but if there’s an ampersand in the Post title it’s reproducing it in the glossary/directory in unencoded form. Is there anything I can do to stop it?
Thanks!
March 7th, 2008 at 7:07 am
Ignore me - it’s sorted!
March 8th, 2008 at 4:52 am
So did anyone figure out how to use Cyrillic alphabet with this plugin ???
If you did please email.
Thanks
March 12th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
Nikolay — I did not get sufficient feedback to start the process. I’ll send you an email, maybe you can help. It still may take me a while to implement though.
March 12th, 2008 at 2:41 pm
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