• A dropdown category list
• A dropdown page list
• An out-of-the-box breadcrumb
• 4 widget areas in the sidebar
• Author Comment highlighting
• Built-in recent post and recent comment display

Screenshot

Live Previev of the Theme

Download

Download the latest version of ClockWorkMint here

Version history

• v1.0.5
• Fixed a possible misuse of the breadcrumb

The theme series will consist of 3 themes.  A quick preview of the first theme in the series is already online – just look at the current theme of Clockworkblogger.com.

• A built-in Breadcrumb (appears only on pages other than the home page)
• 4 widget areas in the sidebar
• Author Comment highlighting

Screenshot

Live Previev of the Theme

Download

Download the latest version of ClockWorkAir here

• v1.1.2
• Fixed a possible misuse of the breadcrumb

• Out-of-the-box Social media icons
• A built in Breadcrumb
• 4 widget areas in the sidebar
• Author Comment highlighting
• Comment numbering
• ready-to-use subscribe to comments – removed in v1.3.0, please use subscribe to comments plugin

Screenshot

Live Previev of the Theme

Download

Download the latest version of ClockWorkMint here

Translations

• Polski – Polish translation of the Theme by TopBlogger,
• Deutsch – German translation by WordSaftPresse.

Version history

• v1.3.0
• Added localization (.mo and .po files added to archive)
• removed the Subscribe to Comments code from the theme – please use a plugin (the database fits the subscribe to comments plugin)
• v1.2.2
• Fixed a possible misuse of the breadcrumb
• v1.2.0
• Added a theme options panel under Design » ClockWorkMint Options
• header image is now changed in Design » ClockWorkMint Options
• Removed the breadcrumb from index page, it still shows on other pages
• fixed pre tags displaying across the page

• An out-of-the-box Breadcrumb
• 4 widget areas in the sidebar
• Author Comment highlighting
• Built-in subscribe to comments

Screenshot

Live Previev of the Theme

Download

Download the latest version of ClockWorkSimple here

Translations

• Polski – Polish translation of the ClockWorkSimple Theme by TopBlogger,
• Deutsch – German translation by WordSaftPresse.

Version history

• v1.3.1
• Fixed a possible misuse of the breadcrumb
• v1.3.0
• .po file for translation included
• fixed bug where the comment bubble would not link properly
• fixed pre tags displaying across the page
• moved shown tags below post content

“Can do” statements

• Can display the posts and pages written by one or more authors as joint or seperate lists
• Can sort the output by post title, date or number of comments
• Can display the number of posts that were listed in one call and the number of comments for each post
• Can be called multiple times in a single page or post

Requirements

• Wordpress 2.3 or above
• PHP Exec plugin or similar to be able to make php calls within pages or posts

Download

• Download the latest version

Version history

• v1.0.1 (November 14th, 2007) – fixed bug that would dispaly all posts instead of those by the selected author(s)
• v1.0 (October 31st, 2007) – basic working version

Installation

1. unzip downloaded file
2. upload sobeks_posts_by_author.php to your “wp-content/plugins” folder
3. enable the plugin on the “Plugins” tab in your administration area

Basic usage

1. enter
   

   <?php sobeks_posts_by_author(xyz) ; ?>

   anywhere on your page you want the list of posts to be displayed

2. replace “xyz” with the ID of the author whose posts you want to display eg.
   

   <?php sobeks_posts_by_author(3) ; ?>

   to list the posts of more than one author as one list replace xyz with a comma separated list of author IDs eg.

   <?php sobeks_posts_by_author(3,1,5) ; ?>

3. enclose the function call with “<ul>” and “</ul>” eg.
   

   <ul><?php sobeks_posts_by_author(3,1,5) ; ?></ul>

4. Repeat steps 1-3 for as many seperate author listings as you need

Advanced usage

Sobek`s Posts by Author plugin currently supports the following tags. If you choose not to use them, a built-in default value will be used in their place (i.e. nothing will break):

1. “title” / “date” / “commentsort” – sorts the output by title, date or number of comments. Defaults to “title” eg.
   

   <?php sobeks_posts_by_author(3,1) ; ?>

   will produce the same result as

   <?php sobeks_posts_by_author(‘title’,3,1) ; ?>

   whereas this call will produce the same list of posts sorted by date:

   <?php sobeks_posts_by_author(‘date’,3,1) ; ?>

   and this call yet again the same posts, this time sorted by “most commented”:

   <?php sobeks_posts_by_author(‘commentsort’,3,1) ; ?>

2. “count” / “nocount” – hides or shows the number of posts displayed in one call. If shown the “number of posts” information is the first item of the list displayed. Defaults to “nocount” eg.
   

   <?php sobeks_posts_by_author(3,1) ; ?>

   will produce the same result as

   <?php sobeks_posts_by_author(‘nocount’,‘title’,3,1) ; ?>

   whereas this call will produce the same list with the first list item being an information about how many posts are displayed:

   <?php sobeks_posts_by_author(‘count’,3,1) ; ?>

3. “comments” / “nocomments” – hides or shows the number of comments to a post. Defaults to “nocomments” eg.
   

   <?php sobeks_posts_by_author(3,1) ; ?>

   will produce the same result as

   <?php sobeks_posts_by_author(‘nocomments’,‘title’,3,1) ; ?>

   whereas this will display the same list with the number of comments shown i brackets after the link to a post:

   <?php sobeks_posts_by_author(‘comments’,3,1) ; ?>

Examples

• The sitemap of this page here (scroll down to the heading “Łukasz Sobek”, the posts are ordered by date)

CSS Styling

To style the output of the list just assign a class or ID to the “<ul>” tag eg.

<ul class=”helpful”><?php sobeks_posts_by_author(3,1) ; ?></ul>

and modify your wordpress css file to style the entries of the list.

PS. If you want an ordered list, you my want to enclose the call within <ol> tags eg.

<ol><?php sobeks_posts_by_author(3,1) ; ?></ol>

Related plugins

• Wp-authors provides an “Authors” widget in the sidebar, useful for identifying all the different authors in a multi-author blog.
• Authornotify is a wordpress plugin to show a message box in all the posts by a particular author.

Worth reading

• Using Author Template Tags Outside of the WordPress Loop by Lorelle
• How-to style WordPress author comments by Derek

After publishing the Sobek`s Post in Category plugin I thought it a good idea to write a couple of lines about how to create a manual Wordpress “Site map” or “Site index” for your Wordpress 2.3+ blog.
The terms “sitemap” or “site index” in this tutorial do not refer to a Wordpress Google Sitemap, but to a page displaying the contents of your Wordpress powered site in HTML.

There are, of course, plugins like the Dagon Design Sitemap Generator, which let you set up a 100% automatic sitemap and are very easy to use, or as Jim Westergren puts it:

[DDSG] is an extensive plugin with a lot of options and is 100% automatic. Just follow the instructions on that site on a new site map page and then in your template footer file and or at some other visible place, make a link pointing to your site map for full visitor and search engine link benefit.

Your own “handmade” Sitemap

Having said the above, I’d like to present a way to create your own handmade sitemap, not because I don’t like automatic ones – in fact I found some of them to be brilliant – but because building your own site index:

1. is fun
2. is more flexible
3. gives you more control over its content
4. displays the list the way you choose
5. will make you never want to go back to 100% automatic again

Step 1 – Prepare yourself

Depending on the size of your Wordpress powered site, prepare to spend about 20 minutes to set up the first version of your fully handmade site index, also:

1. download and install the PHP Exec plugin (or similar)
2. download and install the Sobek’s Post in Category plugin
3. prepare a list of ID numbers of the categories you would like to include in your sitemap

Let’s move on to step 2

Step 2 – Prepare the page

Enter your Wordpress admin panel, go to “write” >> “write page” and in “code view” create a new page called “Sitemap” with the following content:

<h1>Main category</h1>

<div style=”margin-left:30px;”>

<h2>Subcategory</h2>
<ul>
<?php sobeks_posts_in_category(3); ?>
</ul>

<h2>Two subcategories at once</h2>
<ul>
<?php sobeks_posts_in_category(4,33); ?>
</ul>

<h2>Remaining posts</h2>
<ul>
<?php sobeks_posts_in_category(5); ?>
</ul>

</div>

The numbers within the sobeks_posts_in_category() tags are the ID numbers of the categories you prepared earlier. If you put more than one number within the brackets, separate them with commas eg. sobeks_posts_in_category(5,6,7,8,9)

Step 3 – Repeat step 2

Next, do the same for each main category you want to inlude in your site index:

<h1>Other main category</h1>

<div style=”margin-left:30px;”>

<h2>Other subcategory</h2>
<ul>
<?php sobeks_posts_in_category(7); ?>
</ul>

<h2>Other subcategory</h2>
<ul>
<?php sobeks_posts_in_category(8); ?>
</ul>

<h2>Remaining posts</h2>
<ul>
<?php sobeks_posts_in_category(9,10,11,12,13); ?>
</ul>

</div>

Save the page i.e. click “publish” in Wordpress

Step 4 – Linking it

Place a link to your newly created page in your header or footer or anywhere you need it.

Step 5 – You’re done

That’s basically it. The plugin has more options, such as sorting by date and displaying the number of coments to a post etc., so, if you are interested, please visit the plugin page.

Other things worth reading

If you want to read some more about HTML site indexes you may want to browse these:

• Tutorial: Automatic Site Map for WordPress by Jim Westergren
• The Art of a Good Site Map and Help Visitors Navigate Your Site: Make a Site Index by Lorelle

Other resources

If you are looking for other resources concerning XML and HTML Sitemaps, feel free to visit:

• Google (XML) Sitemaps Generator for WordPress by arne
• Sitemap Generator by Dagon Design
• the wp_get_archives() tag

Features

• Very small
• Easy to use
• Extremely flexible

What can you do with it?

• Display a list of the posts from one or more categories as joint or seperate lists
• Use the plugin multiple times in your pages, posts, header, footer, sidebar
• Limit the number of posts displayed
• Put the result on show as ordered, unordered or comma-separated list 
• Sort the output by post title, date or number of comments
• Show the number of posts that were listed
• Present the number of comments for each post
• Display the date of posting for each entry listed 
• Inform which author wrote each post

Requirements

• Wordpress 2.3 or above
• Exec-PHP plugin or similar to be able to make php calls within pages or posts.

Download

• Download the latest version

Version history

• v1.9 (November 11th, 2007) – display the date of publishing a post, changes in syntax
• v1.8 (November 7th, 2007) – limit the number of posts displayed
• v1.7 (November 4th, 2007) – put the result on show as ordered, unordered or comma-separated list
• v1.6 (November 1st, 2007) – inform which author wrote a post
• v1.5 (October 29th, 2007) – improves display speed and adds support for sorting posts by number of comments
• v1.4 (October 26th, 2007) – lets you output the number of comments after the link to a post, also the order of arguments supplied doesn’t matter now
• v1.3 (October 23rd, 2007) – now with the option to display how many posts you have listed with one call
• v1.2 (October 20th, 2007) – adds sorting by title or date and a small rename of the function
• v1.1 (October 17th, 2007) – features listing several categories with one call
• v1.0 (October 14th, 2007) – basic working version

Bugs fixed

• v1.9

  - it’s not really a bugfix, but here goes: (hopefully) fixed Front Page Excluded Categories from limiting the display of posts on the main page when using Sobek’s Posts in Category

• v1.6

  - the post count stopped being enclosed by <li> tags, since it would cause problems when the list is displayed within <ol> tags (i.e. it spoofed the numbering of an ordered list)

• v1.5

  - fixed problem where more than one argument would make the function behave improperly

  - fixed problem with handling a non-standard wordpress installation (i.e. with a prefix other than “wp_”)

Installation

1. unzip downloaded file
2. upload sobeks_posts_in_category.php to your “wp-content/plugins” folder
3. enable the plugin on the “Plugins” tab in your administration area

Basic usage

PS. You may also want to read the tutorial I wrote for the plugin.

1. enter
   

   <?php sobeks_posts_in_category(xyz) ; ?>

   anywhere on your page you want the list of posts to be displayed

2. replace “xyz” with the number of the category the posts you want to display belong to eg.
   

   <?php sobeks_posts_in_category(16) ; ?>

   to list more than one category at once replace xyz with a comma separated list of categories eg.

   <?php sobeks_posts_in_category(16,32,8) ; ?>

3. enclose the function call with “<ul>” and “</ul>” eg.
   

   <ul><?php sobeks_posts_in_category(16) ; ?></ul>

4. Repeat steps 1-3 for as many categories you want

Advanced usage

Sobek`s Posts in Category plugin currently supports the following tags. If you choose not to use them, a built-in default value will be used in their place (i.e. nothing will break):

1. “sort:title” / “sort:date” / “sort:comments” – sorts the output by title, date or number of comments. Defaults to “title” eg.
   

   sobeks_posts_in_category(16,32);

   will produce the same result as

   sobeks_posts_in_category(‘sort:title’,16,32);

   whereas this call will produce the same list of posts sorted by date:

   sobeks_posts_in_category(‘sort:date’,16,32);

   and this call yet again the same posts, this time sorted by “most commented”:

   sobeks_posts_in_category(‘sort:comments’,16,32);

2. “author” – shows the author of the post eg.
   

   sobeks_posts_in_category(16,32);

   will not show the author of the post, whereas

   sobeks_posts_in_category(‘author’,16,32);

   will produce the same list with the author information displayed.

3. “postcount” - shows the number of posts displayed in one call eg.
   

   sobeks_posts_in_category(16,32);

   will not show how many posts were listed, whereas

   sobeks_posts_in_category(‘postcount’,16,32);

   will produce the same list with info about how many posts you displayed.

4. “commentcount” – shows the number of comments to a post eg.
   

   sobeks_posts_in_category(16,32);

   will not show how many comments a post has, whereas

   sobeks_posts_in_category(‘commentcount’,16,32);

   will display the same list with the number of comments shown.

5. “style:order” / “style:unorder” / “style:comma” – displays the output as ordered, unordered or comma-separated list. Defaults to a backwards compatible form as shown in “Basic Usage” eg.
   

   sobeks_posts_in_category(16,32);

   will result in an unordered list i.e. by default you have to provide the <ul> or <ol> tags yourself. If you use “style:order” / “style:unorder” / “style:comma” as argument the script will produce the <ul> or <ol> tags e.g.

   sobeks_posts_in_category(’style:order’,16,32);

   will display an ordered list of the contents of categories 16 and 32 with all <ul> and <li> already supplied.

   PS. The comma-separated list has no <ul>, <li> or <ol> tags.

6. “limit:{x}” – limits the number of posts displayed to {x} eg.
   

   sobeks_posts_in_category(16,32);

   will display all posts of categories 16 and 32 as one ordered list. If you use the limit argument only the first {x} posts will be displayed e.g.

   sobeks_posts_in_category(’style:order’,‘limit:5′,16,32);

   will show the first five posts from a combined list of both categories.

   PS. The brackets in “limit:{x}” are only there to make the “x” stand out. Limiting the number of posts to be displayed is generally used to show e.g.

   • a list of 5 recent posts from category #4 e.g.
     

     sobeks_posts_in_category(’sort:date’,‘limit:5′,4);

   • a list of the 10 most commented posts from categories #5 and #6 e.g.
     

     sobeks_posts_in_category(’sort:comments’,‘limit:10′,5,6);

Examples

• The sitemap of this page here (sorted by title or date with comments counted)

CSS Styling

To style the output of the list just assign a class or ID to the “<ul>” tag eg.

<ul class=”helpful”><?php sobeks_posts_in_category(16) ; ?></ul>

and modify your wordpress css file to style the entries of the list.

If you used the “orderlist” / “unorderlist” parameter the class of the container is called “sobeks_pic“, so if you want to style your list enter something like

ul.sobeks_pic {
    margin:0px;
    padding:0px;
}

ul.sobeks_pic li {
    border-bottom: 1px solid #eee;
    padding:2px;
}

into your style.css

Credits

• WordPress Category Posts Plugin by Brian Groce for Wordpress versions prior to 2.3. (presents the same functionality as v1.0 of Sobek`s Post in Category plugin)