The AVH Extended Categories Widget gives you two widgets for displaying categories. One is a replacement of the default category widget to allow for greater customization. The second is a Top Categories widget, which is only available in WordPress 2.8 and higher.
Current Release: Version 3.2.1 Released on: Jun 11, 2010
Download | Donate | Features | Support | Installation | Changelog | Translations
Features
The AVH Extended Categories Widgets gives you three widgets for displaying categories.
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Replacement of the default category widget to allow for greater customization.
-
A top categories widget. Shows the top X categories. This requires WordPress 2.8 or higher.
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A Category Group widget. Shows categories from a group which is associated with the post/page that the visitor is looking at. Categories can be added to a group. Multiple groups can be made and every post/page can be associated with a different group. This requires WordPress 2.8 or higher.
The Replacement Widget
Customizable options:
- Title of the widget.
- Display as List or Drop-down.
- Show number of posts (Count) after the category.
- Hide empty categories.
- Show categories hierarchical.
- Show categories up to a certain depth. (Requires WordPress 2.8 or higher).
- Sort by ID, Name, Count, Slug.
- Sort ascending or descending.
- Show RSS link after the category as text or image.
- Select which categories to show. (Requires WordPress 2.5.1 or higher).
The Top Categories widget
Customizable options:
- Title of the widget.
- How many categories to show.
- Display as List or Drop-down.
- Show number of posts (Count) after the category.
- Sort by ID, Name, Count, Slug.
- Sort ascending or descending.
- Show RSS link after the category as text or image.
- Select which categories to show. (Requires WordPress 2.5.1 or higher).
The Category Group widget
Customizable options:
- Title of the widget, either per widget or per group.
- Display as List or Drop-down.
- Show number of posts (Count) after the category.
- Hide empty categories.
- Sort by ID, Name, Count, Slug.
- Sort ascending or descending.
- Show RSS link after the category as text or image.
You can set the following options for the Category Group Widget:
- Which group to show on the home page.
- Which group to show when no group is associated with a post. Useful for older posts that don’t have the association.
- Set the default group when editing or creating a post.
You can also select not to show the Category Group widget by selecting the group: None
Translations
The plugin has been translated in the following languages:
- Czech – Čeština (cs_CZ) in Launchpad by Dirty Mind – http://dirtymind.ic.cz
- Spanish – Español (es_ES) in Launchpad
- Italian – Italiano (it_IT) in Launchpad – Gianni Diurno – http://gidibao.net
- French – Français (fr_FR) in Launchpad – BeAlCoSt – http://www.aclanester56.com/
If you have a new translation or an update of an existing translation feel free to e-mail the new file and with the next release the updated version will be included.
Download
Version 3.2.1 Released on Jun 11, 2010.
Donate
If you enjoy this plug-in please consider a donation. There are several ways you can show your appreciation:
- Amazon Wish List
You can send me something from my Amazon Wish List which is shown in the sidebar. - Through Paypal.
Click on the Donate button and you will be directed to Paypal where you can make your donation and you don’t have to have a Paypal account.
Installation
Download the archive and extract all in the wp-content/plugins directory. Go to your WordPress administration page, click on Plugins and activate it. Go to the Presentation->Widgets page and drag the widget into the sidebar of your choice. Configuration of the widget is done like all other widgets.
Support
If you have comments/problems/suggestions, see something in the code which is not compliant to the WordPress Plugin Codex, or just want to say “Cool! It works!”, feel free to create a post at the AVH Support Forum
Changelog
Version 3.2.0.1
- Bugfix: Forgot to add a directory into SVN.
Version 3.2
- Compatibility issues with upcoming WordPress 3 resolved.
- Bugfix: Description of the groups didn’t save.
- RFC: All widgets – Option to sort the categories by slug.
- RFC: Category Group widget – Ability to set the widget title per group.
Version 3.1
- Wrap the group widget in a div with id = name of group. This enables CSS modification based on the group.
- Hierarchical now works with the option “Select Categories” as well.
- Bugfix: If the normal widget and group widget are displayed on the same page as dropdown, the selected option could be the wrong one.
- Bugfix: In a RTL-based theme the admin menu would flip back to the left, instead of staying right.
- Bugfix: Hierarchical works in the Category Group widget.
- Bugfix: Change div tags in widget from ID to class to comply to W3 validation.
Version 3.0.2
- Bugfix: The plugin conflicts with the standard theme/plugin editor in WordPress
Version 3.0.1
- Bugfix: During activation error message Fatal error: Call to undefined function add_meta_box() appeared
Version 3.0
- Renamed the plug-in to AVH Extended Categories Widgets
- Added new widget: Category Group. You can create groups with categories and associate the group with a post. The widget will show the categories from the group.
- Added translation: Italian – Italiano (it_IT)
- Added css file for widgets. Using the CSS you can change the layout of the text.
- Redid settings. Settings are now a separate menu.
- Reduced memory foot print.
- Increased speed.
- Development improvements.
- Added uninstall capability.
- Bugfix: The hierarchy check mark in the widgets would disappear.
- Bugfix: In drop down list the hierarchy would appear despite the fact that “Show selected categories only” was selected.
- Note: Some of the translations are not yet complete with version 3.0.
Version 2.3.3
- Bugfix: Validation error on drop down categories.
Version 2.3.2
- Bugfix: Saving the option didn’t work
- Added translation: Spanish – Español (es_ES)
Version 2.3.1
- Bugfix: Undefined function
Version 2.3
- RFC: You can change the text Select Category, without editing any translation file.
- Bugfix: Selecting one parent wouldn’t show it’s children.
- You can now display only selected categories. This didn’t work properly in an hierachical category structure.
- Added Czech translation.
Version 2.2
- RFC: Internationalization of the plug-in.
- Bugfix: W3 Validation Errors when using drop down categories.
- Added option to exclude categories from displaying instead of including them. (Compliments to: Jose Luis Moya – http://www.alsur.es )
Version 2.1
- RFC: The path for the RSS image can be URI.
Version 2.0.3
- Bugfix: When selecting hierarchy and showing of all levels, the hierarchy wouldn’t be shown.
Version 2.0.2
- Top categories widget caused error in PHP4.
Version 2.0.1
- Reported problem with calling a class by self ()
Version 2.0
- Updated for WordPress 2.8. Unlimited amount of Extended Categories widgets is now possible.
- In WordPress 2.8 you have the options to select depth when showing hierarchy. See FAQ for more information.
- With WordPress 2.8 there is a new widget, AVH Extended Categories Top. This will show the top categories based on amount of posts.
Version 1.5.1
- Bugfix: Compatibility issue with the plug-in wp-security-scan
Version 1.5
- RFC: Option to show RSS feed after categories
Version 1.4.1
- Bugfix: Problem when using multiple widgets with the drop down option.
Version 1.4
- Ability to have up to 9 widgets.
Version 1.3
- You can select which categories to show (Requires WordPress 2.5.1 or higher).
Version 1.2
- When no category or an empty category is selected the dropdown menu shows Select Category, like the default category widget.
Version 1.1
- Drop down menu didn’t work. Page wasn’t refreshed with selected category.
Version 1.0
- Initial version
download link is not working.
cheers
Allan
Sorry about that, it’s fixed now.
hi
thank you for this great tool, i’m using it on my blog: http://www.xiiboo.com/powerfon/blog/
regards
marc
If the theme I used is no sidebar defined, when I checked in presentation – widget, is there any way to configure it manually in the code of the template? There’s eventually a sidebar but it didn’t show up in presentation widget somehow. So the only way to do it is to configure in the code manually.
In reply to #4
I answered your question of the support board:
http://forums.avirtualhome.com
How to configure category count? It does not seems to be working by default. Also How to stop categories showing, which does not have any posts under them?.
The plugin does not come under Options sub menu.
firstly, thankyou for this plugin, it seems to be just what I am looking for. However, I cannot type anything into the the title bar of the widget. A cursor flashes for a second in the title box then disappears. Any ideas? many thanks for your help
thankyou, Hannah
@hannah:
I posted your question and a reply on the forum at : http://forums.avirtualhome.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=8
Johan,
That’s a great idea. It does mean I’ll have to rewrite the core part I’m using, but I’m liking it.
I’ll add it to my list of feature requests which can be found at the AVH Support Forum: http://forums.avirtualhome.com/viewforum.php?f=5
Hi,
Thanks for this plugin. I was looking for just something like this.
Any chance to see an exclude category option in a future release?
Keep up the great work!
- Johan
Hey,
Thanks for considering.
To not complicate things, just entering a string of comma separated category ID’s should do the trick. Perhaps, not the user friendliest solution, but some similar plugins like breukies category widget worked like that before it got broke with newer wordpress versions.
Then a new text input field for the id string should be all that’s needed to the form, and then add the string to the argument array. I’m not much of a php wiz, but I made a quick personal mod to your script where I just hardcoded in some categories at the end of the array to exlude. Adding: ‘exclude’ => ’52,73′ to the end. Works perfect, but a bit tedious to update with new categories.
I’ll keep my eyes open if you decided to include it.
Trying to change the title. But won’t save. Anyone else having this problem? How can I fix it to save title?
Thanks
Hi,
Thanks for great plugin. Just yesterday it stopped excluding categories,
the rest of the options is working fine. I want to exclude one
category but no go, it always is there. I uninstalled, installed again,
update to wordpress 2.7 but still can’t exclude the category.
How to “debug” it?
Thanks,
miki
Thanks nice plugin
I want to exclude one
category but no go, it always is there.
What website are you running it on and which version of the widget are you using?
Hi, excuse me for my bad english ..
It’s possibile to change the number of categories displayed and shows the top categories by number of posts ?
Thank you so much !
You can select which categories to show and order them by count(=number of posts)
What you can’t do is: Show me the top 5 categories based on number of posts.
How can I add this widget more than once to the sidebar?
I want to create different parts in the sidebar with different categories displayed, similar what flexipages does with pages. Under Available Widgets is “Extended Categories 1″ and the Add link. When I add the widget, the Add link disappear. It looked for me (because if the “1″), I could add more than one…
If you scroll down the page you will see an option to select how many widgets you would like.
Is it possible to set depth of displazed categories if thre is hierarchy?
For example I want to have only top level categories displayed, but not to manually set ID’s of subcategories to make them invisible.
Currently it is not possible.
I’m working on a new release and will implement this option.
I’ve category with many subcategories.
Is it possible to show only the subcategories but not the category?
You just have to select the categories you would like to display.
Hi, Great plugin. But it messed up my 2.8 installation/upgrade.
I get:
Fatal error: Cannot instantiate non-existent class: self in /home3/site-name/public_html/site-name/wp-content/plugins/extended-categories-widget/2.8/class/avh-ec.core.php on line 36
I had to delete the plugin via FTP to get WP up again.
What PHP version are you running?
I just released version 2.0.1 which should take care of the problem.
Excellent plugin! Thanks =)
Hi,
Thanks for this plug-in its just what I needed. I have implemented it on my site Animedimension.com. I am wondering if there is a way to customize the width of the drop down box?
Thanks…
The dropdown itself is created by WordPress itself. So if you change the CSS your theme applies it could change, but it probably will change for all dropdown boxes.
Hello Peter:
I tried to install your plugin via WP’s “Add Plugin” functionality, using WP 2.8, directly from the WP plugins site.
During the install process, I get the error:
Incompatible archive PCLZIP_ERR_BAD_FORMAT (-10) : Invalid archive structureWhen I download the ZIP file from your site, and upload it to the WP Installer, everything works fine. You might want to look at the package on the WP servers.
Chris,
This seems to be related to a bug in WordPress itself. http://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/10104
Peter:
Thanks for the quick reply on this. I have tried this with other plugins, and agree that this is a WP bug.
Thank you for your hard work developing this plugin.
The option widget-extended-categories-1-hierachical does not work since version 2.0.2.
Thank you for reporting. I just released the bugfix, v2.0.3. Give it about 15 minutes before it’s available for download.
Thanks Peter. Works perfectly fine now!
Hi Peter,
I’m using your plugin in my blog and it works great. In case of the rss icon there is a little problem I can’t solve. Maybe you can help me with it. On my right sidebar at http://www.babbel-net.com/ you can see under “Team” or “Blog abonnieren” that I centered the rss icons cause it just looks better. I did it with this sort of code:
style=”border: none; margin: 0 0 -4px 0; padding: 0;”
My question is now how can I reach the same effect in your plugin so that the rss icons under “Kategorien” lay on the same centered position like the others?
Greetings from germany and thanks in advance!
P.S. I’m using wordpress since two days and the whole coding thing is totally new for me. So I hope my question isn’t too silly.
Dennis,
You will have to edit the style.css
Add the following lines:
#cat-item img {border: medium none ;
margin: 0pt 0pt -4px;
padding: 0pt;
}
I do believe that should do the trick
Hi Peter,
thanks for the help! It worked. The only thing I had to change was the “#cat-item img” into a “.cat-item img”. That did the trick
Thanks again for the help and of course the great plugin!
Cheers and greetings from germany
Dennis
Hi –
Is there any way to delete the title completely and remove “select category” from the dropdown?
I am only using one category and would like to remove this. Thank you. Lisa
Hi. Just upgraded to the latest version, and I can’t seem to be able to get the RSS icon to show instead of the (RSS). I have the option checked, and I have the correct path to the icon, but it’s not working.
Any suggestions?
Thanks,
Michael
@mpmchugh: I had the same problem. If you use WordPress 2.8, open /2.8/class/avh-ec.widgets.php and delete line 54 – 58. I don’t know, why the availability of the feed image is checked in this way?! The image should be an URI.. Right?!?
Thanks for the tip. Can’t get to those include files via the WP editor, so I’ll have to get added to the same group to try it out.
I’ll change that in the next version.
There is not really a need to check if a file exists.
Thanks so much for this plugin!
I would like to change the text “select category”. Can you please let me know how to do this.
Thanks in advance.
Currently it is hard coded in the plugin. I can see if I can add a administration page where you can change the text.
What would you like it to be?
Thank you so much for your reply.
I need to translate it. Is there any way that you could leave it blank? This will enable many people to use it with different languages. As of now it is only suitable for English sites.
Thanks again!
I will work on internationalization of the plugin.
Thank you very much! Please let me know when it is ready.
I have 2 questions about it. I would like to use the plugin instead of navigation. My only links will be from each category to all of the relavent posts. The list will be drop down. From an SEO point of view will Google be able to get to each of my posts?
Another question – is the load time longer similar to that of Ajax (i.e. does it load as needed)?
I have 100 categories which I would like to divide among about 6 sets. Will my load time be long?
Thanks so much again!
Nicole,
Search engine spiders can’t fill out forms or pull down on lists, so content that is only accessible through pull-down lists will not be indexed.
It’s not loaded as needed. All lists are populated before the content is served. The load time depends on the server the site is running on. I can’t imagine the load time would increase much by implementing your idea.
Thanks! I am anxiously waiting for the international version. I love this plugin!
Thanks again!
Not sure if i missed this being asked before, can this be configured to just show subcatagories of the current category page?
Currently it can’t.
If you would like this functionality I suggest going to the forum and post it in the Feature request section.
Hi Peter,
is there a way to put the rss-feed-icons before the category and vertically centered –
in style.css preferably?
I’m sorry Michael, but because the building of the category + feed-icons is done in WordPress core, there’s no way currently to move the icon at the moment. To center it vertically see comment 26 and my reply.
Thanks for much for the plugin! I am redoing my site and it is very helpful! I will definately use it!
After using the Extended Categories plugin and then deactivating it my normal WordPress categories widget is missing. How do I get my normal, built-in categories widget back?
I deactivated and deleted my plugin as a test and still have the Categories widget.
I’m not sure why the default widget is gone in your situation.
Was it available while the plugin was active?
Hi Peter, thanks for your quick reply. In answer… no the built-in categories widget is not there at all, it makes no difference if the Extended categories widget is active or deactivated. I wonder if it’s also something to do with a theme I used – the Hybrid theme (and child themes)? I’ll post on their forum and see if it might be something to do with the theme (which I’m no longer using) as well.
Hi Peter. I use the plugin on my site.
I replace all my categories menus with your pluggin, just for the ease of customisation
I was wondering if the option to “nofollow” certain category links would be a good idea in a future release?
The category widget is usefull to sort posts by differnt category parameters, but this may produce a lot of links that you might not want the serch engines to waste their time spidering duplicate content.
If i was building a site by hand i might nofollow these links, so i thought i’d as you opinion
Thanks
Robert.
If it would be for all categories it would not be a big problem but to only add nofollow to certain categories would mean a bit more programming, I don’t think it’s impossible though. I might implement it in a future release. I have a few other things in the pipeline right now.
Easiest way to get rid of bullets in category list?
Changing your themes CSS. The lists get their style from the theme.
Great category plugin … Couldn’t live without it now that i’m used to it …
I have a suggestion, so, for a feature that could make it even useful. Why didn’t you propose the “order by slug” feature ? Ordering by slug is an easy way to order your categories the way you want without acrobatic moves. For those who are not too “SEO touchy”, you just modify your slugs to get the order you want when listing categories …
Thanks for this fine plugin.
Any chance of a future update or sharing code that we can add that would bold the high level parent categories? It would make them stand out much better as compared to the child categories. Great plugin either way. Thanks!
Today’s update give me this:
Fatal error: Call to undefined function add_meta_box() in /home/artmuns/public_html/musiclibraryreport.com/wp-content/plugins/extended-categories-widget/2.8/class/avh-ec.admin.php on line 42
Had to disable
Have the same problem –
Fatal error: Call to undefined function add_meta_box() in xxxx/wp-content/plugins/extended-categories-widget/2.8/class/avh-ec.admin.php on line 42
Your most recent upgrade has locked me out of my admin, so had to delete the plugin through cPanel. As soon as i clicked automatic upgrade the page reloaded with a blank page and i couldn’t get back into admin.
Hope you can take a look, thanks
Same problem as Bill and Art – when doing the automatic upgrade in my wp-admin, it looked me out and gave me this error:
Fatal error: Call to undefined function add_meta_box() in xxxxx/wp-content/plugins/extended-categories-widget/2.8/class/avh-ec.admin.php on line 42
Had to delete the plugin via FTP in order to regain access to my admin panel.
v3.0 1st error while accessing /wp-admin
Fatal error: Call to undefined function add_meta_box() in …l/wp-content/plugins/extended-categories-widget/2.8/class/avh-ec.admin.php on line 42
I’m going back to prev version for now
Beware: it seems to be in conflict with wp-Super Cache. I have WP 2.9.1 and AVH Extended Categories 2.8 works perfectly. When upgrading to 3.0 no way to access my dashboard.
Without wp-Super Cache, I got this FATAL ERROR : Call to undefined function add_meta_box()
Got the same issue…
Fatal error: Call to undefined function add_meta_box() in …l/wp-content/plugins/extended-categories-widget/2.8/class/avh-ec.admin.php on line 42
I have the same error as everyone else.
v3.0 1st error while accessing /wp-admin
Fatal error: Call to undefined function add_meta_box() in …l/wp-content/plugins/extended-categories-widget/2.8/class/avh-ec.admin.php on line 42
Unfortunately, I cannot find the previous version on my HD to reinstall it
Please contact me, I will send you mine 2.8
satclimax_at_gmail dot com
I have the same error. Old version worked fine, but when I upgraded, all I got was a blank screen. The only thing that fixed it was deleting the entire plugin through cpanel. Please fix! This plugin was so much better than the others.
If you get : Fatal error: Call to undefined function add_meta_box()
Please upgrade to version 3.0.1 it’s available on the WordPress site.
You can just install this new version and everything should be fine again, as far as I know you shouldn’t even have lost your widget settings.
Thanks for the nice plug-in. I have a fw questions.
1) Is i possible not to show RSS next to some categories?
2) Is it possible to link RSS to Feedburner feeds instead of the default WordPress feed?
Thank you for your help.
1. No, it’s either all categories or none.
2. Currently it is not possible. If you want it it would mean you have to setup a Feedburner feed for every category. I would have to look into what it would take to program this option.
After upgrade to version3, hiearchy function stopped working. In version 2.3 it was working?
Please make sure you don’t have to the option Selected Categories selected. You can’t have hierarchy with this option (you could select children but not the parent and you can’t show hierarchy)
There was a bug in the previous version of AVH Extended Categories which made it work anyway.
I have a few questions.
I have 4 pages on my site and i need to show different categories in sidebar for each pages. Is it possible to do with this plug-in?
You sure can.
You’ll have to create 4 groups, each containing the categories you want to show.
Edit the pages and select the desired group of categories you want to show.
Activate the Categories Group widget in the sidebar and you are set.
I have create 4 groups, but when i run my site plug-in show Home Group or Nonexistence Group categories and don’t show correct categories for selected page.
I think i do something wrong when create Group. Pleas tell me what’s wrong… may by the Group Name must be the same with page name or Slug Group with page name?
Everythong is clearly now for me. Thank you very much!!!
Hello!
Nice plugin and congratulations for your work.
I want you to notice that when using this plugin in a multilingual site using WPML only categories are shown in the default language, not the secondary ones.
I hope ypu consider fix these feature soon. Thank you!
Great plugin!! Thank you!
Wondering if next update could add a “sort by slug” and “font style bold for fist level”. That would be perfect then!!
You should be able to display the font style bold for 1st level in AVH Extended Categories by adding some css:
.widget_extended-categories ul li {font-weight:bold;
}
.widget_extended-categories ul li ul li {
font-weight:normal;
}
You can add the CSS to the file avh-ec.widget.css
Take note that next time an update is installed of the AVH Extended Categories plugin these changes will be gone due to the way WordPress updates plugins. I’m working on a solution for this.
Wow, how fast and how kind you are, Peter! Thank you for your reply, I’ll try this right away. Please also consider the “sort by slug” function because sometimes we need to organize the categories display in our own order, not by name or by count, and we cannot control the ID. So the easiest way I can think of is sort by slug.
Thank you again!
Is there a way to show the archive in a post or page?
I don’t quiet understand what you mean. The AVH Extended Categories shows categories, not archives.
The latest 3.2 version won’t activate and causes an error. There is a thread started here – http://forums.avirtualhome.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=255&start=0
It looks like the ‘helper’ directory wasn’t included in the distro.
BTW, That was regarding the issues activating the 3.2 version.
Released version 3.2.0.1 which solves the problem, my apologies people.
Thanks! That fixed it.
I just updated and getting
Warning: Cannot modify header information – headers already sent by (output started at /home/jahzara/public_html/blog/wp-content/themes/thematic/functions.php:293) in /home/jahzara/public_html/blog/wp-includes/pluggable.php on line 868
Never mind I fixed it.
Great plugin, gives me the options I need except one. When using the pull down is it possible to change the text “Select Category” to say something else?
Thanks
Yes you can.
In the AVH Extended Categories -> General Options -> Select Category Alternative
You can’t set it per widget.
Awesome! Thanks, guess I missed it.