Archivist – Custom Archive Templates

Shortcode Plugin to display an archive by category, tag or custom query. Customizable via HTML templates.

Author:Eric Teubert (profile at wordpress.org)
WordPress version required:3.0
WordPress version tested:6.1.5
Plugin version:1.7.7
Added to WordPress repository:15-09-2011
Last updated:23-02-2024
Rating, %:94
Rated by:10
Plugin URI:https://wordpress.org/plugins/archivist-custo...
Total downloads:23 143
Active installs:1 000+
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Quick Start

The plugin assumes your articles are well categorized.
To display the archive, use the shortcode anywhere in a page or article.

[archivist category="kitten"]
[archivist tag="kitten"]

Replace “kitten” with your category/tag. Watch out, we need the slug here.
That’s the name without capital letters and spaces.

Placeholders

You can specify a custom template to display the archive elements.
Go to Settings > Archivist for plugin preferences.
Use HTML and any of the following template placeholders.

  • %TITLE% – The post title.
  • %PERMALINK% – The post permalink.
  • %AUTHOR% – The post author.
  • %CATEGORIES% – The post categories as unordered list.
  • %CATEGORIES|...% – The post categories with a custom separator. Example: %CATEGORIES|, %
  • %TAGS% – The post tags with default separator.
  • %TAGS|...% – The post tags with a custom separator. Example: %TAGS|, %
  • %EXCERPT% – The post excerpt.
  • %POST_META|...% – Any post meta. Example: %POST_META|duration%.
  • %POST_META|...|...% – Any post meta list, separated by custom HTML. Example: %POST_META|guest|<br>%
  • %DATE% – The post date with default format.
  • %DATE|...% – The post date with custom format. Example: %DATE|Y/m/d%
  • %POST_THUMBNAIL|...x...% – The post thumbnail with certain dimensions. Example: %POST_THUMBNAIL|75x75%
  • %COMMENTS% – The post comment count.
  • %ACF|field_name% – Display ACF field. Uses the get_field() function.

You can add your own placeholders:

add_filter( 'archivist_template_render', function( $template, $post ) {
    // modify $template
    return $template;
}, 10, 2 );

Pagination

If you have many entries, you may prefer to paginate. The archivist comes with asynchronous pagination built-in. Use the pagination parameter in the shortcode to activate it. Its value is the amount of items you want to display per page.

[archivist category="kitten" pagination="10"]

Pagination controls are displayed both on top and at the bottom of the archive. You can customize this by setting controls to top or bottom.

[archivist category="kitten" pagination="10" controls="top"]

Filter by Query

Are you feeling bold? Is filtering by category or archive not satisfying you? Read on, I’ve got a challenge for you.
WordPress uses a certain query syntax to define the so called loop which is used to display the archive.
You can find the complete documentation at https://codex.wordpress.org/Class_Reference/WP_Query
and you can take advantage of every single parameter or combination of parameters listed there. Some examples:

[archivist query="year=1984&author_name=gorwell"]

Lists all entries from the year 1984 by the author with user_nicename gorwell.

[archivist query="tag=straw+mask&post_status=private&orderby=comment_count&order=DESC"]

Lists all entries marked with post status private which are tagged with both straw and mask, ordered by the amount of comments in a descending order.

Using multiple Templates

When you install the plugin, there is just one templated called “default”.
If you don’t specify a specific template in the shortcode, this one will be used.
Therefore the following two shortcodes yield identical results.

[archivist category="kitten"]
[archivist category="kitten" template="default"]

You can add as many templates as you like. Think twice before deleting one. If it’s still in use, the archive can’t be displayed.