Smarter Archives Plugin

When you use the [smarter-archives] shortcode anywhere in a post or a page, it gets replaced by a listing of every year since you started posting, with a list of links to each month for that year. However, the plugin is smart enough to know if you didn’t create any content in any given month, and doesn’t make a link for that month. See the Screenshots section for an example of it in action.

See the Usage section for a complete list of the arguments the shortcode takes, and how you can use them to customize your archives listing.

The month names are internationalized with the WordPress translation API. A POT file is included, and if you want to translate please feel free to do so and submit a new pull request on GitHub. If you do not know how to use GitHub, you can also contact me directly. Here are the translations that have been done so far:

• Dutch (nl_NL)
• French (fr_FR)
• German (de_DE)
• Italian (it_IT)
• Spanish (es_ES)
• Russian (ru_RU)

The original concept for this plugin comes from a plugin by Justin Blanton.

Usage

The [smarter-archives] shortcode takes these arguments (default values included):

• mode (default: output) — if it’s set to output, the plugin prints the listing. Set it to false to return the value
• wrapper_class (default: smart-archives) — class given to the tag wrapped around the listing (<div> by default)
• wrapper_tag (default: div) — tag wrapped around the listing
• year_link_class (default: year-link) — class given to each year links
• year_tag (default: p) — tag around each year group
• year_class (default: none) — class for the tag around each year group
• after_year (default: :) — value after the year and before the list of months
• month_link_class (default: month-link) — class given to each month link
• month_tag (default: span) — tag around each month
• after_month (default:  ) — spacer between months
• empty_month_class (default: empty-month) — class applied to empty months (can use this to gray them out)
• order (default: DESC) — order the years are shown in (ASC for ascending, DESC for descending)

Advanced Usage

There is a function, get_smarter_archives(), that returns the raw array with the years, months, and post counts. You can use this for ultimate customization.

Example Usage

[smarter-archives order="DESC" after_month="&bull;"]<h3>License</h3> This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA. 

A full version of the license is included with the plugin in license.txt.

1. Download the ZIP file and unzip it
2. Copy or upload the smarter-archives folder to your plugins folder (usually wp-content/plugins/)
3. Activate Smarter Archives in the admin
4. Put the [smarter-archives] shortcode where you want the listing to show
5. Enjoy.

1. 

   An example of the plugin in action on my website.

3.2.5

• Fix issue with setting default options in shortcode
• Updated compatibility up to WordPress 5.5

3.2.4

• Added Russian (ru_RU) translation, thanks to Alexander Tischenko

3.2.3

• Added German (de_DE) translation, thanks to Jay Linski (@jaylinski)

3.2.2

• Updated Italian translation
• Added Dutch (nl_NL) translation, thanks to Micha

3.2.1

• Fixed bug involving extra empty months

3.2

• Fixed bug related to the new i18n changes in WordPress 4.0

3.1.3

• Fixed bug relating to an extra quote in month links

3.1.2

• Added French (fr_FR) translation, thanks to Jean-Hugues Roy

This update is optional, the only change is the new French translation.

Also, note that development is now on GitHub. Releases will continue to be pushed through the WP plugin repository, however.

3.1.1

This update is optional for everyone, unless you want the new Italian translation. If not, feel free to skip it.

• New translation: Italian (it_IT) courtesy of Marco Zambianchi

3.1

• Only load textdomain if WPLANG is defined AND not empty

3.0

• Backend is completely rewritten: only 1 query compared to 12 for every year before (!!)
• Optimizations everywhere
• New option: year_class (see Usage for more info)
• Updated compatibility to WP 3.8
• Updated es_ES translation to include new strings

2.6

• Standardized i18n calls — fully translatable
• Added a POT file for translating
• Added a lang folder
• Spanish (es_ES) translation added — thanks to Andrew Kurtis of WebHostingHub
• New shortcode: [smarter-archives], see Usage for more details
• Fixed bug: order now actually does something

2.5

View changes for 2.5 here.

2.0.1

• Updated WordPress compatibility to 3.5.1

2.0

• Updated WordPress compatibility to 3.5
• Main function’s output is now completely customizable
• i18n support added; English domain included
• Smarter Archives is now licensed under the GPL v2 license

1.5

• Updated WordPress compatibility to 3.4.2