WordPress plugin intelligence profile

Collapsing Categories

Adds a widget which uses Javascript to dynamically expand or collapse the set of posts for each category.

WP PlugIndex snapshot

Current directory snapshot

Tested up to WordPress 6.9
Current version3.0.12
WordPress coverageTested up to WordPress 6.9
Minimum stackWP 5.0 · PHP —
Directory statusactive
Last directory update12 Feb 20268mo ago
Active installations4K+Adoption metric — not a quality score
WordPress.org rating4.1 / 5 from 57 ratings
Official packageDirect from WordPress.org

Repository metrics are context, not quality scores. Active installations measure adoption and can strongly reflect a plugin’s age and historical popularity. Ratings, recent updates and “Tested up to” metadata also do not guarantee modern code, error-free operation, security, feature completeness or suitability for a particular site. Why active installs don’t tell the whole story →

WP PlugIndex currently records Collapsing Categories version 3.0.12 as active, updated 8mo ago and tested up to WordPress 6.9.

Overview

About this plugin

Collapsing Categories creates an expandable list of categories and

subcategories. It can also expand to show posts. The primary usage is as a

widget, but you can also use the code in your theme manually if you wish (see

installation instructions)

Options

Options can be set

from the block panel. If you wish to insert the code into your theme manually

instead of using a widget, you can use the following options. These options

can be given to the collapsCat() function either as an array or in query

style, in the same manner as the wp_list_categories function.

$defaults=array( 'showPostCount' => true, 'inExclude' => 'exclude', 'inExcludeCats' => '', 'showPosts' => true, 'showPages' => false, 'linkToCat' => true, 'olderThan' => 0, 'excludeAll' => '0', 'catSortOrder' => 'ASC', 'catSort' => 'catName', 'postSortOrder' => 'ASC', 'postSort' => 'postTitle', 'expand' => '0', 'defaultExpand' => '', 'postTitleLength' => 0, 'accordion' => 0, 'catfeed' => 'none', 'taxonomy' => 'category', 'showPostDate' => false, 'postDateAppend' => 'after', 'postDateFormat' => 'm/d', 'useCookies' => true, 'showTopLevel' => true, 'postsBeforeCats' => false, 'expandCatPost' => true, 'debug'=>'0' );

  • inExclude
  • Whether to include or exclude certain categories
  • ‘exclude’ (default)
  • ‘include’
  • inExcludeCats
  • The categories which should be included or excluded
  • showPages
  • Whether or not to include pages as well as posts. Default if false
  • linkToCat
  • 1 (true), clicking on a category title will link to the category archive (default)
  • 0 (false), clicking on a category title expands and collapses
  • catSort
  • How to sort the categorys. Possible values:
  • ‘catName’ the title of the category (default)
  • ‘catId’ the Id of the category
  • ‘catSlug’ the url of the category
  • ‘catCount’ the number of posts in the category
  • ‘catOrder’ custom order specified in the categorys settings
  • catSortOrder
  • Whether categories should be sorted in normal or reverse

order. Possible values:

  • ‘ASC’ normal order (a-z 0-9) (default)
  • ‘DESC’ reverse order (z-a 9-0)
  • postSort
  • How to sort the posts. Possible values:
  • ‘postDate’ the date of the post (default)
  • ‘postId’ the Id of the post
  • ‘postTitle’ the title of the post
  • ‘postComment’ the number of comments on the post
  • ‘postOrder’ sort by menu order
  • postSortOrder
  • Whether post should be sorted in normal or reverse

order. Possible values:

  • ‘ASC’ normal order (a-z 0-9) (default)
  • ‘DESC’ reverse order (z-a 9-0)
  • expand
  • The symbols to be used to mark expanding and collapsing. Possible values:
  • ‘0’ Triangles (default)
  • ‘1’ + –
  • ‘2’ [+] [-]
  • ‘3’ images (you can upload your own if you wish)
  • ‘4’ custom symbols
  • customExpand
  • If you have selected ‘4’ for the expand option, this character will be

used to mark expandable link categories

  • customCollapse
  • If you have selected ‘4’ for the expand option, this character will be

used to mark collapsible link categories

  • postTitleLength
  • Truncate post titles to this number of characters (default: 0 = don’t

truncate)

  • accordion
  • When set to true, expanding one category closes all others at that level
  • catfeed
  • Whether to add a link to the rss feed for a category. Possible values:
  • ‘none’ (default)
  • ‘text’ shows RSS
  • ‘image’ shows an RSS icon
  • taxonomy
  • Type of taxonmy to display. Possible values:
  • ‘category’ (default)
  • ‘link_category’
  • ‘post_tag’
  • ‘both’ (categories and tags)
  • any other registered taxononmy (e.g. recipe press uses recipe-categories)
  • showPostDate
  • When true, show the date of each post
  • postDateAppend
  • Show the date before or after the post title. Possible values:
  • ‘after’ (default)
  • ‘before’
  • postDateFormat
  • What format the post date is in. This uses the standard php date

formatting codes

  • useCookies
  • When true, expanding and collapsing of categories is remembered for each

visitor. When false, categories are always display collapsed (unless

explicitly set to auto-expand). Possible values:

  • 1 (true) (default)
  • 0 (false)
  • showTopLevel
  • When set to false, the top level category will not be shown. This could

be useful if you only want to show subcategories from one particular

top-level category

  • 1 (true) (default)
  • 0 (false)
  • postsBeforeCats
  • When set to true, posts in category X will be ordered before

subcategories of category X

  • 1 (true)
  • 0 (false) (default)
  • expandCatPost
  • When set to true, any category to which a post is assigned will

automatically be expanded on a single post page.

  • 1 (true) (default)
  • 0 (false)
  • showEmptyCat
  • When set to true, empty categories are shown
  • 0 (false) (default)
  • 1 (true)
  • debug
  • When set to true, extra debugging information will be displayed in the

underlying code of your page (but not visible from the browser). Use

this option if you are having problems

Examples

collapsCat('catSort=ASC&expand=3&inExcludeCats=general,uncategorized')

This will produce a list with:

* categories shown in alphabetical order

* using images to mark collapsing and expanding

* exclude posts from the categories general and uncategorized

`

php

echo '

‘. “\n”;

if (function_exists(‘collapsCat’)) {

collapsCat(array(

‘postSort’ => ‘postDate’,

‘postSortOrder’ => ‘DESC’,

) );

} else {

wp_get_categories(‘your_options_here’);

}

echo “

\n”;

>

`

Demo

com

CAVEAT

Currently this plugin relies on Javascript to expand and collapse the links.

If a user’s browser doesn’t support javascript they won’t see the links to the

posts, but the links to the categories will still work (which is the default

behavior in wordpress anyways)

WordPress.org metadata

Plugin tags

Topics listed for this plugin in the WordPress.org directory.

  • categories
  • navigation
  • sidebar
  • widget
Compatibility & maintenance

Compatibility & maintenance

Tested up to WordPress 6.9

Not yet marked as tested with WordPress 7.1. WordPress.org currently lists Tested up to 6.9.

Current WordPress releaseWordPress 7.1
WordPress.org Tested up to6.9
Minimum requirementsWordPress 5.0 · PHP not listed
Update activity12 Feb 20268mo ago

“Tested up to” is directory metadata supplied by the plugin author. WP PlugIndex does not turn an older declaration into a claim that the plugin is incompatible.

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