Custom Field List Widget

This plugin creates sidebar widgets with lists of the values of custom fields. The listed values can be (hyper-)linked in different ways.
One possibility is to create a list of all values of a custom field, which will be groupped by their post (or page) and (hyper-)linked automatically to this post (or page).
Another possibility is that you can create a list of all unique values of a custom field and specify links as you like (or not).

In other words: This plugin allows you to create lists of one category of meta information (on each list). The custom field names and values can be used as categorizable tags and with this plugin you can create lists of tags of one category.

One example of usage could be: a list of the names of the guest of your podcast episodes. Or if you write about books then you can have e.g. a list of the authors and as sub list elements the titles of the books linked to the posts containing the recension.

This plugin supports multiple widgets (You can have more than one list at the same time in one sidebar.) and uses the jQuery framework (which is delivered with WP automatically) to make the hide and show effects e.g. of a parted list (if the browser of a visiter of your does not allow or support Javascript the full list will be visible).

Available in the languages:

• English
• German
• Spanish provided by Juan Jose Bescos of IBIDEM GROUP
• Bulgarian provided by Peter Toushkov
• Hindi provided by (complete only until v1.1.7) Kakesh Kumar
• Danish (frontend only) provided by Peter Kirring
• Russian (only for v0.9.4 and v0.9.4.1) provided by Michael Comfi
• Uzbek (only for v0.9.4 and v0.9.4.1) provided by Alisher Safarov

If like to translate this plugin into your language or if you like to continue the existing translations then you are very welcome. Contact me and I will help you with the first steps.

Usage

Lists with more than one hierarchy level

(since v0.9.5)

You can define several custom field names for a post. The values of these custom field names will be taken from the data base like they were arranged in columns side by side.
All the values will be sorted by one of these columns. You can choose which column resp. custom field name should be the sort criterion. Further it is possible to hide this column (which should be decisive for the sorting) in the list in the sidebar.

Example:
An easy to understand example is probably a list of posts which are categorized by special dates. In this example the custom field names are “realdate” and “datename”. As “realdate” you set good sortable text strings or numbers like 20091005 (consists of year, month, day) and as “datename” you can set e.g. “October 2009” which is probably not in the same way sortable as the numbers. This way you can of course build probably more useful lists. A more colourful case of use which works this way is probably if you make list of posts grouped by a none-Gregorian calendar. You can use as datenames e.g. names of months and years of the Chinese calendar.
In this example the “datenname”s would be the main list elements and the post titles sub elements of them. The “realdate” would be hidden via the option “hide this”.

If you want to create a more sub-divided list (instead of “datename” something like “year”, “month”, “day”) then you should keep an eye on the right hierarchy order.
(e.g. 0. “realdate” (sort by / hide this), 1. “year”, 2. “month”, 3. “day”). The post titles will be sub elements of “day” and “day” will be sub elements of the months and so on – in the list in the side bar widget. (But for this special case there other plugins like Collapsing Archives)

Other and even better examples (in English) are the book lists at the weblog of Larry Wilson. He makes list of the books he has read.

There are some basic things you should be aware of:
* Overall you can use 5 hierarchical levels (if you want to have more then write me an email).
* Every post you want to have in the sidebar list should have the same custom field names (The custom field values can differ from post to post.)
* The custom field name which should be excluded from the list should be the first or the last in the list on the widgets page (on the admin site).

Usage of the sorting option “sorting values by the last word”

(since v0.7)

You can influence which word the last word is by using a underline character between the words. If you make a underline character between two words it will be seen as one word.

Example:

names with more than one first and family name Jon Jake Stewart Brown the last word is Brown Jon Jake Stewart_Brown the last word is "Stewart Brown" 

The underline character will not displayed in the sidebar.

Changing the appearance of the lists

Since v1.0 all click-able drop down menu elements have the class “customfieldlist_opt_link” so you can adapt the appearance of these elements easier.

The speed of the show/hide effects and the hide/show characters are changeable via the settings page of the plugin. The settings on this page are for all the widgets of this plugin.

Deinstallation

1. Deactivate the plugin.
2. Delete the folders and files of the plugin via the Dashboard of your blog or FTP or etc.(don’t forget the file from the K2 theme folder if you have used that). Only deleting the plugin via the WP Dashboard will remove the options from the database.