RB Simple FAQs

A simple, lightweight plugin for managing and displaying Frequently asked questions using a custom post type. The faqs are output using a shortcode and can be divided into multiple categories allowing you to manage the output of individual questions or categories across your site, output the entire list. The questions and/or categories can be collapsable, making them easier to view. The output from this plugin comes mostly unstyled, allowing for maximum customisation using css.

The background and text colours can be altered on an options page with a live preview of the output. These options accept all valid background-color css values (rgba, hex, etc.).

Shortcode examples

These are some examples of how to output questions using shortocodes.

Default settings: output all of the faqs divided by category (if they exist), output headings for category names:

[faqs][/faqs] 

Output faqs for a single category, “returns”. The first question is open, the rest are collapsed:

[faqs cat="returns" show_question="first"][/faqs] 

Shortcode options

FAQ categories to output

Only show faqs from these categories. Add the slugs as a comma separated list. You can find the slug for the categories on the “FAQ Category” page in WordPress.

cat="[cat-slug]" (default:blank) 

What parts should be collapsable

Determines whether the categories and the questions are collapsable.

• none
• question
• category

• both

  collapsable=”[options]” (default:”questions”)

Question to exclude

If there are any faqs that you want to exclude from being output, add their IDs as a comma separated list to this attribute.

exclude="[faq-id]" (default:blank) 

Show or hide the category titles

Whether to show or hide the category titles. If this is set to hide and the cat attribute isn’t set then all of the questions and answers will be output. collapsable="both" or collapsable="categories" overwrites this option.

title="show/hide" (default: "show) 

Initial state of the questions

Change the initial state of the questions when a visitor opens the page with the FAQs on. If the questions aren’t collapsable then this attribute does nothing.

• “close” – all of the answers closed
• “show” – all of the answers expanded

• “first” – the first answer expanded, other answers closed

  show_question=”show/close/first” (default: “close”)

Initial state of the categories

Change the initial state of the categories when a visitor opens the page with the FAQs on. If the categories aren’t collapsable then this attribute does nothing.

• “close” – all of the categories closed
• “show” – all of the categories expanded

• “first” – the first categories expanded, other categories closed

  show_category=”show/close/first” (default: “close”)

Type of Icon

Changes the type of icon used for collapsable elements. Effects both the categories and answers. Available options:

• “arrow”

• “plus”

  icon=”[icon-type]” (default: “none”)

Secondary icon type

Changes the type of icon used for collapsable answers when collapsable is set to both. Otherwise does nothing. Available options:

• “arrow”

• “plus”

  icon_secondary=”[icon-type]” (default: “none”)

Linking directly to a question

To link directly to a question from another page, add a “targetQuestion” get variable to the end of the url with the question id like so:

http://yoursite.com/faq-page/?targetQuestion=21 

When following that link the correct category and question will be open and the user will be moved to the correct location on the page.

Help us improve this plugin

If you have any feedback or require any support using this plugin, get in touch with us by email at [email protected]