robfelty.com :: Blog :: Collapsing Links

Collapsing Links

IMPORTANT INSTALLATION NOTES for WP 2.7
Please deactivate before upgrading, then re-activate the plugin. Also, note
that in WP 2.7, adding the widget does not seem to work if you have “show all
widgets” selected, but it does if you select “show unused widgets” from the
widget editing menu. Hopefully this will be corrected eventually

The Collapsing Links widget creates a list of links (blogroll) for each link category, which can be expanded and collapsed dynamically. You can have multiple instances of the widget on your pages, each with its own set of options, including:

Show link counts in link category links
Sort by link category name, link category id, link category count etc.
Sort in ascending or descending order
Exclude certain link categories
Automatically expand certain link categories
Several different icons to choose from for expanding and collapsing

The plugin is hosted on the official wordpress repository at: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/collapsing-links

If you have any questions, bug reports, or feature requests, please post a comment below.

Your appreciation

If you really like my plugins, please give them a nice ranking in the wordpress plugin repository (links above), or you can send me a donation via paypal below:

35 Responses to “Collapsing Links”

On August 25th, 2008 at 10:27 pm
Leonaut.com wrote:

Collapsing Links…

The Collapsing Links widget creates a list of links (blogroll) for each link category, which can be expanded and collapsed dynamically….
On August 26th, 2008 at 2:20 pm
philip wrote:

Cool. My blogroll was getting so out of control that I removed it from my sidebar. This will enable me to put it right back! I’ll have a play just as soon as I get home. Thanks
On October 6th, 2008 at 8:43 am
William wrote:

I didn’t see the links version yesterday!!! So glad it is there!!! Thanks a Bunch!! Though I’m almost there..I’ve two questions…I have it working..simple enough..though when I expand the category it won’t collapse- there is no [-]
Second..how can I use css to adjust the look of the link, what exactly do I call the ‘elements’?
This is so brilliant..I hope you get the word out better for this …especially to those that love 100 link lists..
On October 6th, 2008 at 11:01 am
Rob wrote:

@William,

I’m not sure if I understand all your questions, but I fixed a few bugs and added some more options in version 0.1.2.

Please take a moment to give the plugin a rating. That should boost its visibility.

Rob
On October 29th, 2008 at 7:13 am
Stef wrote:

Hi Robert
Great plugin, there’s just one thing about it that niggles me - click on any link and it opens in the same window, despite me setting all of my links to open in new windows. If you can fix this, I’d be glad to give your plugin a rating.
Thanks.
On October 29th, 2008 at 10:01 am
robfelty wrote:

@Stef,

I was not aware of that functionality. It should work now in 0.1.3.

Thank you.

Rob
On October 29th, 2008 at 10:31 am
Stef wrote:

Cheers for the swift reply, Robert, I’ll update to the latest version as soon as it’s available from the WP repository.

I’ve found another bug, though… “include” and “exclude” link categories doesn’t work if the category link title is 2 words (works fine if it’s just 1 word). Right now I’ve got 2 instances of the widget in my sidebar - one should have all cats excluding “Site Navigation”, the other should just include “Site Navigation”, but the first has all cats and the other shows none.

FWIW, there’s something going on here with your comments - I found my original commment and your reply to it via the RSS Comments feed, but neither are showing in the comments list for your blog post.

Cheers again,

Stef
On October 29th, 2008 at 11:03 am
baron wrote:

hi. Thanks for plugin

perfect.

Regards
On November 12th, 2008 at 3:20 pm
tueac wrote:

I’m sorry but your plugin can’t seem to work with certain web browser or my theme… I tried it but it will only work on Google chrome…
On November 22nd, 2008 at 1:51 am
Alyse wrote:

Is there a non-widget version? I would like to use this on a page instead of my sidebar. Thanks!
On December 21st, 2008 at 8:39 am
Effluvium from Sonya’s Brain » Blog Archive » Shout-outs to Some Damned Kewl Coder-Geeks! wrote:

[...] Felty is responsible for 3 separate plugins — Collapsing Archives, Collapsing Categories, and Collapsing Links — which enable me to make my archives, categories, and links all collapse (imagine that!) [...]
On December 21st, 2008 at 11:31 am
robfelty wrote:

@Alyse,

Sorry for the slow reply. The newest version of collapsing links does allow you to use a non-widget version.

Rob
On December 22nd, 2008 at 6:54 am
John wrote:

Am I missing something, I used the Widget method. The list shows up on my blog but the lettering is light grey. The up/down arrows appear to be clickable when curser is over them, but nothing happens. I changed to ’show only unused’ in widgets - to be sure.

WP version 2.6.5

Same result in IE and Mozilla browsers.

Am I suppose to add the code shown at the bottom of the widget dropdown menu somewhere? Don’t see any instructions about doing so.

Nice concept and seems flaxable - if it works.

Please help, I’ll leave it there this way for a few hours, maybe you will see how it is.

Thanks, John
On December 22nd, 2008 at 9:25 am
Mario wrote:

Hi,
I used your pluging, which has worked. Suddenly, I don’t why, don’t know what I changed, I can open the categories anymore to see the links itself.
What could it be ?
thanks, Mario
On December 22nd, 2008 at 9:26 am
robfelty wrote:

@John,

The color of the text is inherited from the sidebar. Notice that your “My Tweeting” section is also the same grey.

I am not quite sure why the collapsing is not working. It could be that there is a conflict with some other javascript on your site. If you have the option for “animate collapsing and expanding” checked, try unchecking that. That is the most likely culprit.

Thanks for trying it out.

Rob
On December 22nd, 2008 at 9:38 am
Mario wrote:

Is it possible that this happened after the upgrade to the new version. I did not deactivate it, like you wrote. Just made an automatic upgrade.
Not sure, if it has worked afterwards.
I unchecked the animate.. still not working.
Also the mouse is not changing when I go over the collapsing symbol of the categorie, like it did before.
On December 22nd, 2008 at 5:46 pm
John wrote:

Changing the ‘animate’ option has no affect.
Interesting - I removed the ‘My Tweets’ widget and now the expand arrows on ‘collapsing’ don’t even react to curser, as they had before.
So, am I stuck with the “great conflict mystery” which will use the rest of my life to figure out?
I guess I can’t use this cool looking plug in, can’t affort to spend a week trying everything, unless you have any other ideas,

John
On December 22nd, 2008 at 5:54 pm
John wrote:

Oh, and I forgot, also after removing the ‘My Tweets’ widget - the code that was in the ’style info’ box at the bottom of the the ‘Collapsing Liks’ drop down box is no longer there, Nothing in the box now.

John
On December 22nd, 2008 at 8:40 pm
robfelty wrote:

@Mario,

Could you give me a link to your site so I can check it out?

@John, you could try downloading an older version, and see if that works for you, or maybe a newer version (not yet done) would work. Sorry it is not working for you.

Rob
On December 25th, 2008 at 3:20 pm
Thomas Brincefield wrote:

I just wanted to let you know, I was installed your plugin, using the automatic install from Wordpress. When I activated it and placed a widget in my sidebar, my load time on my blog went from about 15 sec to almost 5 minutes. When I deactivated your plugin, the load time went back to normal. Obviously something is not working right there.

I am using the Vigilance theme on Wordpress 2.7.
On January 1st, 2009 at 11:15 am
Garry Parkes wrote:

Hekk Rob,

I’ve tried to use your Collapsing Links widget. Seems extactly what I want as my Blogroll is in excess of 200. However, just can’t get it to work.

I left it on my site in the very bottom of the left hand-side bar so show you what it is doing. Any ideas? Others in our blogging community I am in have also tried it and can’t get it working too. It would be great if I get this to work as it would be so useful.

Garry Parkes
http://garryparkes.com/
On January 1st, 2009 at 12:32 pm
Garry Parkes wrote:

Hi Rob,

Whoops my previous comment was suppose to say Hello … fingers must of got in a knot when Hekk came out LOL …
On January 2nd, 2009 at 12:55 am
John wrote:

Rob, I got the 1.4 version to work on my blog.
What was changes in the 2.0 version, may be some clue as to why myself and some of mt associates can’t get it to work.

Yes, Garry, above and a few others of us are in a small group, about 500, that are in a traingin with Alex Jeffreys and many of us want to have these fellow student blogrolls which can get huge as we get it built. I see Garry has about 200 in hi so far.

What I am getting at here is that we can pass this plug in around to a few people, many of which are getting damn serious and building a lot of traffic to their blogs, the point right!

If you can help us figure out how to get these working, we help you! Part of what many are doing is having lists of resources they have used, aka plug-ins.

I will tell Garry and some of the others about my success with version 1.4

My blog is http://makeinternetmarketingmoney.com I will put a post up there about using ver. 1.4, if you wish to add comments there feel free.

All of the blogs are most likely using one of the last two WP versions as most are new.
On January 2nd, 2009 at 1:09 am
John wrote:

Now another question comes up. Some say that links, (blogroll) hold better SE weight if they have a description, so it is not just a dumb link.

I noticed that with theh collapsing links plug-on the description does not show up with a ‘mouse over’. Is there a way to get this to show? And do you know if the description shows up to a robot even is not shown onn the site, it is in the link listing in the control panel.

John
On January 2nd, 2009 at 11:41 am
robfelty wrote:

@Garry and John,

Sorry for the slow reply. I just moved across country, and have been busy with Christmas and New Year’s stuff as well.

I just checked into the problems, and I think I have fixed them. I also added a mouseover feature as you requested John. Please download version 0.2.1.

Rob
On January 3rd, 2009 at 5:30 am
John wrote:

Rob,

OK, part way there. The new version works, but a little oddly.

I use the triangle bullet in front of the title (other options work the same)
The FIRST time you roll the curser over either the triangle or title, there is NO highlight or words show up, BUT, clicking on the triangle DOES expand the list.
Then, I can close the list and scroll over it again, the triangle does not highlight, but the mouseover word DOES show up - but only on the one that I clicked and opened.
Each one must be clicked on and opened once before it responds to the mouseover.

I hope this makes sense.
I will leave it this way so you can look at it.
http://makeinternetmarketingmoney.com

Thanks, John
On January 3rd, 2009 at 11:17 am
Garry Parkes wrote:

Hi Rob,

Thanks for sorting it out so quickly. I will give it a try on my website today and get back to you.

Thanks once again. This is going to be very useful.

Kind Regards,
Garry Parkes
http://garryparkes.com
On January 3rd, 2009 at 3:40 pm
robfelty wrote:

@John,

Try out 0.2.2. Thanks for your patience. This plugin is the newest of the ones I have written, and so it is still a little bit immature.

Rob
On January 3rd, 2009 at 5:09 pm
John wrote:

Rob,

You’re the man!

2.2 works - cool

A couple of questions.

So when you added the ‘mouse over’ feature, the feature of the little triangle expanding went away - can’t do both? Or is that overkill?

And, since I’m not a coder, would you know where to look for the control of the text in the menu. On my theme the links list is a meduim grey, I want to make more pronounced, like black. I suppose in the Stylesheet, but what would it be called?

Thanks
John
On January 3rd, 2009 at 11:41 pm
Tom Brincefield wrote:

It is working pretty well on my site now. There are just a couple of things that are rather strange. In Firefox 3.0.4, data keeps downloading from my site for a couple of minutes after everything on the page is there. I don’t know what it is getting, but something is happening.

Also, on my Widgets page, when I show unused widgets to install your link widget, it shows 7 different Collapsing Links widgets, besides the one in my sidebar.

John, on your editor page, try adding this to your stylesheet:

.collapsLinkItem { color: black; }
On January 5th, 2009 at 5:16 am
Garry Parkes wrote:

Hi Rob,

I tried the version 0.2.1 after you sorted the problems I highlighted. Works fine on the collapsing bit now.

One thing that doesn’t seem to work is the ability to Include/Exclude categorys at the bottoms of the options. When I select this in either Include or Exclude mode it does not work at all.

Incidentally, I am not talking about the autoexpand category option - that works fine.

Thanks
Garry Parkes
http://garryparkes.com
On January 5th, 2009 at 11:38 am
robfelty wrote:

@John - about style - you might also try something more general, like:
.collapsLink {color:black}

@Tom,

What makes you think that collapsing links is making your page load slowly? It looks to me like it might be all the images coming from amazon.

The many different instances in the “unused widgets” is a result of trying to add it and then wondering “why didn’t it show up after hitting save changes?”. I will figure this out eventually, but since there is a workaround, I am not making it high priority, since I just moved, and am very busy.

@Garry, I just tested out including/excluding on my site, and it works fine. Are you entering the name or the slug for the categories? (not the id)

Rob
On January 5th, 2009 at 1:15 pm
Tom Brincefield wrote:

Rob,

Well, the good news is, it isn’t your Collapsing Links causing the loading. It is also not the 2 Amazon pictures I have there. (If you are seeing more than that, please let me know, since there are only supposed to be 2.) It is apparently something with the WP Super Cache I installed recently. I was assuming it was your widget because it had caused such long load times the first time I tried it, which you have fixed even better than I had thought. Sorry about that.

I also found out how to remove the extra widgets on the widget page. After having the widget active, remove it and save the changes. It does not get added back into the unused list as long as there is one still there. So it was a matter of add the widget, save changes, remove the widget, save changes, until I was down to one.
On January 6th, 2009 at 4:55 pm
Garry Parkes wrote:

Hi Rob,

I got that include/exclude feature to work. Didn’t realise you had to use the slug reference!

Any chance you can have an option for ‘nofollow’ on the links?

BTW, I’ve got it on my site all up and working now and using some clever technqiues to make sure I get the desired effect on my site. I’ve got a post up today all about it. I have loads of readers on my Blog and I’m hoping to do a video later in the week to let everyone know how I did it all. The last video I did, got embedded in nearly 3,000 websites. Anyway, reason I’m telling you this I’m going to directly refer to your plugin in the video and give a big thanks to you to sorting out the problema I had.

Thanks Rob, Check back later in the week when I put up the post & video which will mention you!!

Garry Parkes,
http://garryparkes.com
On January 6th, 2009 at 9:36 pm
robfelty wrote:

@Garry - thanks for your encouragement. I just released another update today, which has finally fixed the “disappearing widget” problem. I will work on adding a nofollow option (though isn’t that half of the point of having a blogroll?)

Rob

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