Serial Posts

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The Serial Posts plugin allows you to assign a Serial name to your Posts and Pages, using custom fields, and then displays in the single post/page view a list of all Posts and Pages assigned to the same Serial. Designed for authors who wish to group Posts and Pages into series – independently of the usual WordPress Category and Tag structure – its usage does not have to be limited to this. You can create as many different Serials as you wish, and assign these to any Posts and Pages that you wish to group together, to create a wide variety of “related post” or other Post/Page groupings. Key Features The Serial Posts list is displayed with the [serialposts] shortcode in the Post/Page Editor. The position of the Serial Posts list on your page is determined by where you insert the shortcode in your post. You can create as many different Serials as you wish. Limitation: Currently it is not possible to assign more than one Serial name to any one Post or Page. User options for including the currently viewed post in the list, with or without a link. Configurable Heading for the Serial Posts list. Valid xhtml output. Highly customisable CSS styling of the Heading and Serial Posts list. A Serial Posts template tag is also available for advanced users. Further information Comprehensive information on configuring and using the plugin can be found here: Configuration Guide Tutorial Using the plugin To illustrate a typical usage of the plugin, let’s imagine that you are writing a short novel and publishing it a chapter at a time, each chapter being a separate Post. In each Post (ie chapter, to use the example above), create a custom field called Serial, with a value of “story” (without the quotes, of course). Then, insert the shortcode [serialposts] at the bottom of your Post content in the Write Post/Page editor. Now, when you view any of the “chapters”, you will see the list of Serial Posts at the bottom of each “chapter” Post. This gives your readers a great way of navigating from one “chapter” to the next. The display of the Serial Posts list can be customised in the plugin’s Settings page (see the Configuring the Settings page section below). Advanced users who, for whatever reason, prefer to use a Template Tag in their theme templates rather than the shortcode in the Post/Page Editor, can use the Serial Posts Template Tag: <?php serial_posts(); ?> Configuring the Settings page In the Dashboard, go to Settings and open the Serial Posts Settings page. List Display options. This is where you can customise the Serial Posts heading and list of posts. The Heading is made up of three elements: “Text before Serial name” “Serial Name” “Text after Serial name”. Text before Serial name: Enter the text that you would like to appear in the Heading BEFORE the Serial name. If you don’t want to show any text before the Serial name, just blank out the field before saving your settings. Text after Serial name: Enter the text that you would like to appear in the Heading AFTER the Serial name. If you don’t want to show any text after the Serial name, just blank out the field before saving your settings. Hide Serial Name: By default, the Serial Name always appears in the Heading. Check this box to prevent display of the Serial Name in the Heading. Note: checking this option will also hide the “Text after Serial name”. List type <ul> or <ol>: Select to display the links as either an unordered or ordered list from the dropdown. List <ul>/<ol> class: To allow even greater control over the styling of the list, you may specify a class name for the list’s <ul> or <ol> tag. The default is “serial-posts”. Note that the plugin replaces any whitespace with hyphens. Include current post: Check the box if you want to include the currently viewed Post/Page in the list of Serial Posts. Default is CHECKED. If you uncheck this box, the currently viewed Post/Page will not appear in the Serial Posts list. Show current post as a link: If you have checked “Include current post”, you may check this box if you want the current viewed Post or Page to be shown as a link. Default is UNCHECKED. If you check this box, the currently viewed Post/Page will appear as a link in the Serial Posts list. That’s it! The Settings Page is now configured. Further information about using the plugin can be found in the Serial Posts Tutorial. Serial Posts list XHTML markup Please refer to the plugin’s Contextual Help for an overview of the list markup. More detailed information can be found in the plugin’s List Markup Guide.