Technokinetics

A new version of Page Lists Plus can now be downloaded from the WordPress plugin repository. This is the most significant update for a long time, and adds enough new features (including several in response to email requests) that an overview is in order. Here are some of the highlights of PLP v1.1.2:

First, the ability to add custom classes to specific list items has been restored. I had removed this, thinking that the page-item-x classes automatically added by WP made it redundant, but several users asked for it to be reinstated. To use this feature, check the “Add Custom Classes to Individual List Items” option on the Settings > Page Lists Plus page in the dashboard, and save. You can then add custom classes to individual Pages on their edit pages.

Second, the ability to unlink the current Page’s link has been added. To use this feature, check the “Unlink current page” option on the Settings > Page Lists Plus page in the dashboard, and save.

Third, the ability to disable links using javascript has been added. Unlinking a Page’s link removes the link’s anchor tags, which causes presentation problems with some themes. Disabling the link leaves the anchor tags in place (to avoid these presentation problems), but still prevents clicking the link from doing anything. To use this feature, check the “Unlink using javascript” option on the Settings > Page Lists Plus page in the dashboard, and save.

Fourth, by default excluding a Page from your Page lists now also excludes its descendant pages (if it has any). Before, the descendants of excluded Pages were tacked on to the end of Page lists; now they won’t appear at all unless you disable this option by unchecking the “Exclude children of excluded pages” option on the Settings > Page Lists Plus page in the dashboard. Similarly, including a Page will include its descendants, unless this option has been disabled.

Thanks to those who requested these features, particularly Steve Magruder (the first to suggest the “Unlink current page” feature), Jim Harbin (one of several to point out the need for a way of unlinking items without removing anchor tags), and gambit37 on the WP forum (who spotted the problem with how the children of excluded pages were handled).

And as always, if you have any ideas for future releases of Page Lists Plus, then please do let me know.

When you add Posts to a WordPress blog, WordPress automatically creates various archive pages that you can use to display them. These include the commonly used monthly archives, category archives, and tag archives, and also the less commonly used author archives.

You can add a link to an author archive using WordPress’s the_author_posts_link() function. The permalink for an author archive uses the base “author” and the author’s ‘nicename’, which is created on registration using the author’s first and last names and which can’t then be edited through the dashboard. This gives an author archive permalink of something like this: http://www.technokinetics.com/author/tim-holt/.

In some circumstances, this isn’t ideal. If your blog authors use pseudonyms, then you won’t want their real names shown in your author archive permalinks.

To change this, you need to edit your database manually, using phpMyAdmin or similar. In the users table, you’ll find the “nicename” column. Changing the nicename field value for a user will change their author archive permalink, allowing you to protect authors’ anonymity.