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Version 1.3   Updated Friday, February 20th, 2009 at 7:19pm

Multi Column Category List Plugin for WordPress

This plugin generates an alphabetical listing of your WordPress categories in multiple columns. You can choose the number of columns to display, with an option to split up the list of categories by letter. It also supports the use of a custom header to help separate the categories. For example, you could have it say ‘Topics: A’ and then list the topics that start with ‘A’, etc. The category list can easily be added to any post or page with the trigger text, or called directly from a template file. A CSS file is also included for easy style changes.

Related Plugins

There is also a plugin available to generate a multi-column list of your WordPress links.

Download

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Installation

  • Download the above file and uncompress
  • Upload dd-multi-col-cats.php to your plugins directory
  • Upload dd-multi-col-cats.css to your theme directory
  • Activate the plugin from the WordPress admin panel
  • Configure the options under the admin panel: Options – DDMultiColCats

Usage

To use this plugin, simply add the following trigger text to a post or page:

<!-- multicolcats -->

If you prefer, you can also call the function directly from a template file with the following command:

<?php echo ddmcc_generate(); ?>

Change Log

  • 09-29-07 Version 1.3 – Updated for WordPress 2.3. Added ‘Load Default Options’ button. Removed javascript expand code because it was too buggy.
  • 05-16-07 Version 1.2 – Updated for WordPress 2.2.
  • 03-02-07 Version 1.1 – Option added to allow click-to-expand lists. Special thanks to Richard K Miller for submitting the code!
  • 02-03-07 Version 1.0 – First release.

Options

Here are the options available for this plugin under the WordPress admin panel

Number of columns

The number of columns that the categories will be shown in. If you want to show more columns than your layout width will handle, you can adjust the width of each column in the CSS file.

Separate items

Here you can choose to separate the categories by letter, with a custom separation header, or no separation at all.

Separation header

If the separation option is enabled, this is where you enter your separation text, which will be shown above each set of items. You can use %L to show the letter. For example, if you enter Topics: %L then it will show Topics: A, (list of cats), Topics: B, (list of cats), etc…

Excluded categories

This is a comma-separated list of the category IDs you want to exclude from the list.

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  1. 45
    Sami
    3-18-08 12:06AM

    DD it would be really great if it were possible to show category and subcatgories as well! I’ve been searching for this kind of feature for ages, just like in the babycenter site for example :
    http://www.babycenter.com/baby?intcmp=Nav_Global_Baby_v3
    Anyway, thank you so much for all those great plugins :)

  2. 44
    simon ovidiu
    3-17-08 4:50AM

    This is an extremely handy plugin. Thank you very much. You should consider making this into a widget since many people are going to use this in their sidebar.

  3. 43
    Jon Griffith
    3-5-08 1:52AM

    When I attempt to change the number of columns, I receive the following error:

    Fatal error: Cannot redeclare ddmcc_add_option_pages() (previously declared in D:\Inetpub\jonathangriffith\wp-content\plugins\dd-multi-col-cats.php:21) in D:\Inetpub\jonathangriffith\wp-content\plugins\dd-multi-col-cats.php on line 24

    Any idea?

  4. 42
    Rosina Lippi
    2-19-08 3:27PM

    Would there be a way to adapt this for tags?

  5. 41
    Neil
    2-14-08 12:44AM

    Is there a way to use this plug-in for pages.

  6. 40
    justagirl
    2-12-08 1:17AM

    I saw this asked in comment #27, but didn’t find an answer… is there a way to edit the code so that the number of posts per catagory is displayed to the right of the catagory name? A “find/replace” type of answer would be greatly appreciated! Otherwise, this plugin is EXACTLY what I needed. Thanks for offering it! =)

  7. 39
    Alan Kellogg
    2-2-08 2:46PM

    See those two commands? I tried using them both with the links template. I tried using the multicolcats one with archives template. no attempt worked.

    I uploaded the plugins to the plugin directory, I uploaded the CSS files to the theme directory, didn’t work. I am not a happy camper. You need to write complete instructions, and I do mean complete. And that includes the Sandbox theme and any design for same.

  8. 38
    Alan Kellogg
    2-2-08 2:06PM

    You use this with which page template? It is necessary information.

  9. 37
    Haiku Reviewer
    1-22-08 7:35PM

    This is a cool plugin – I am using it on my site, but I have a question…some of my categories start with a number, so does anyone know how to get numbers included along with A,B,C,D etc…?

    Any tips would be much appreciated – cheers everyone!

  10. 36
    Kasper
    1-10-08 11:30AM

    The comma separated excludes doesn’t work! I did this:
    // Set defaults if options do not exist
    add_option(‘ddmcc_num_cols’, 2);
    add_option(‘ddmcc_sep’, ‘header’);
    add_option(‘ddmcc_sep_header’, ‘%L’);
    add_option(‘ddmcc_exclude’, ‘1′);

  11. 35
    Ian
    11-20-07 6:00PM

    Wondering if it could be modified to include only 1 specific category?

  12. 34
    Blogger SEO
    11-12-07 12:21AM

    Hi, again would really love if we have an option to display/not display the “cat description” for each category (cuz the SE isn’t too fondly of a page with tons of links =).

  13. 33
    Wendy
    11-8-07 7:29PM

    Would love to have this type of code to display posts alphabetically. What’s the chances of getting this type of simple code for a page.

  14. 32
    Armin
    10-17-07 9:15AM

    I have to You a strange question: In which application You made logo degondesign. Thamk’s for answer.

  15. 31
    David
    10-4-07 9:21AM

    This plugin help my order my comments. He is great. Thank’s

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