WordPress Guy

WordPress Guy designs and develops WordPress themes and plugins. WordPress Guy teaches you WordPress stuff.

Last week I was having a really hard time ordering the categories in this blog’s header as WordPress only seems to allow to order by name or by ID. That’s why I came up with the Category Order plugin.

Description

The Category Order plugin allows you to easily reorder your categories the way you want via drag and drop. It doesn’t require a special widget or anything, just install and reorder.

Requirements

This plugin requires that you use at least WordPress 2.3, although it has only been tested on WordPress 2.5.1

Download

Category Order 1.0.3

Installation

  1. Download the plugin and expand it.
  2. Copy the ‘category-order.php’ file into your plugins folder (wp-content/plugins/).
  3. Login into the WordPress administration area and go to the Plugins page.
  4. Locate the Category Order plugin and click on the activate link
  5. That’s it, now you can go to Manage » Category Order and reorder the categories the way you want.
  6. If you use wp_list_categories(), make sure you don’t specify an order (e.g. wp_list_categories(’orderby=count’);).

Version History

  • 1.0.3 - If no order is specified, categories are ordered by name
  • 1.0.2 - Fixed a problem related to PHP 4
  • 1.0.1 - Fixed a problem where the plugin wouldn’t work properly if you had installed WordPress in a subdirectory
  • 1.0 - Initial Release

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Blog reactions

Comments

  • June 10th, 2009 at 3:00 pm

    ... Category Order allows you to easily reorder your categories the way you want via drag and drop. It doesn’t require a special widget or anything, just install and reorder. details and download ...

    • December 14th, 2009 at 10:04 am

      BIG THANK YOU for Category Order.

  • June 10th, 2009 at 9:49 pm

    It works on wp 2.7.1 also

  • June 12th, 2009 at 5:53 pm

    Has anyone tested it with 2.8?

  • Aaron
    June 28th, 2009 at 12:39 am

    Works on 2.8 for me.

  • ... It allows you to easily reorder your categories the way you want via drag and drop. It doesn’t require a special widget or anything, just install and reorder. details and download ...

  • July 11th, 2009 at 3:01 am

    Just installed it on a WordPress 2.8.1 site and it works.

    • July 11th, 2009 at 4:30 am

      I spoke too soon. Just like My Category Order plugin the plugin works if viewed using Safari on Mac or Windows but doesn’t always work:
      Mac Safari - yes
      Mac Firefox- yes
      Mac Flock - no
      Windows Safari - yes
      Windows IE8 - no
      Windows Firefox - no

  • July 13th, 2009 at 4:42 am

    Thanks for a great plugin and all the work that goes into creating and maintaining it! Much appreciated.

  • July 20th, 2009 at 9:12 am

    Hi all,
    I’m testing this plugin.
    It looks OK for me, but I’m on mac so I have to check on windows.

    I just want to ask a question :
    does it change the ID in the table “terms” in database please ?
    Thx

    manu

    • July 20th, 2009 at 10:09 am

      It doesn’t alter anything in the database.

  • Gretchen
    July 21st, 2009 at 5:32 am

    I’m having trouble figuring out how to actually get to Manage this (or any) plug-in in WP 2.8.2…all I see is “deactivate” or “edit” can anyone point me in the right direction to a more WYSIWYG UI that let’s me do the drag and drop. I just upgraded to WP 2.8.2 and am not familiar with the controls. Many thanks!

  • Gretchen
    July 21st, 2009 at 5:35 am

    oh, cancel that, I see it…at least for this plug-in…
    great one! works like magic!
    thank you!!!!

  • ... site, although some of them I don’t really get much use from.  Things like Advanced RSS or Category Order are useful, but I haven’t explored their functionality much at all.  Other plugins like ...

  • ... site, although some of them I don’t really get much use from.  Things like Advanced RSS or Category Order are useful, but I haven’t explored their functionality much at all.  Other plugins like ...

  • July 22nd, 2009 at 12:44 pm

    ... It allows you to easily reorder your categories the way you want via drag and drop. It doesn’t require a special widget or anything, just install and reorder. details and download ...

  • July 29th, 2009 at 2:40 pm

    Just lost my whole comment ‘cos I had JS disabled for this site, how annoying…

    Anyway didn’t work for me on mac ff3 + wordpress 2.8.1 and now my write post screen is broken.

    An extra box appears inside the category box that reloads the whole admin screen then it redirects to a broken page and I can’t write a post?

    I’ve removed the plugin and the files so can it be possible that it is that plugin?

    I can’t imagine what else it could be.

  • July 29th, 2009 at 4:24 pm

    Ok anyone reading ignore my comment above it is nothing to do with this plugin..

  • ... first of these plugins by Wessley Roche allows you to sort your categories to appear in the order you want, whether that be in menus or ...

  • August 6th, 2009 at 7:17 am

    The Plug does not work on word press 2.8.3 . You can move the order of the categories around but when saved the do not appear where you wanted them. TESTED WITH WINDOWS AND WINDOWS VISTA

  • August 7th, 2009 at 10:53 pm

    Hello,
    I’m on WP 2.8 - I used Macintosh OSX 10.5.8
    In my case :
    - It works with Safari 4.0.2
    - It doesn’t work with Firefox 2.0.0.20

    Many thanks !
    (sorry for my english)

  • August 18th, 2009 at 6:12 am

    Many Thanks for the plugin.

  • ... Category Order The Category Order plugin allows you to easily reorder your categories the way you want via drag and drop. ...

  • ... Category Order 又一个分类排序插件,在后台通过拖放即可实现分类的重新排序。 ...

  • Levani
    August 30th, 2009 at 10:53 am

    Can you please add the focal plugin support? This plugin stops working if the focal is active!

    Thanks

  • September 8th, 2009 at 5:26 am

    It works on wp 2.8.4 also.

  • ... It allows you to easily reorder your categories the way you want via drag and drop. It doesn’t require a special widget or anything, just install and reorder. details and download ...

  • DJ
    September 11th, 2009 at 6:08 pm

    I like this plugin, but would I be able to access this sorting capability from a page template instead of just in the listing in the sidebar? I have a template which lists my posts by category, but I’d like the presentation of the categories to mimic what i’ve set in this module. Can you help?

    • September 14th, 2009 at 10:49 am

      It should be alright to use this in a page template. You can get the categories using wp_list_categories(’echo=0′) and then getting the posts for each category. The order should be the one set in the category order panel.

  • September 19th, 2009 at 10:15 am

    hi, i m using wp-dtree plugin to display my categories, and wish to be able to order them just like what your neat plugin does.
    Problem is dTree menu offers only ’sort by : Id/date , Ascending/descending’ options. whet piece of the code should i change (i know (a bit) of php) to be able to display the ‘category order’ order instead ??
    thanks
    raf

  • ... Category Order カテゴリー: WordPress, プラグイン タグ: WordPressプラグイン ...

  • September 20th, 2009 at 3:05 am

    Hi

    I’m finding this isn’t working for 2.8.4

    Anyone else getting the same?

  • September 21st, 2009 at 11:38 pm

    ... Category Order (lets you drag/drop categories, handy to tweak menu order) ...

  • September 27th, 2009 at 7:05 pm

    How do i get subcategories to show ? i think i have the wp list categories wrong. Cause if i look i nthe plugin it has more by it and shows it but my actually theme does not ..only shows titles, main ones ? Please help

  • October 2nd, 2009 at 12:01 pm

    well,i don’t english……

  • October 2nd, 2009 at 12:01 pm

    well,i don’t like english……

  • Bernhard
    October 7th, 2009 at 11:50 am

    Hi, thanks for the nice plugin!
    Just one question - are there functions that return the previous/next categories (according to the new order)? Or how would you implement them in WP?

  • October 28th, 2009 at 6:18 pm

    I used this on WordPress 2.8.2 today(28Oct2009) and works like a charm! Thank You, really appreciate the widget!

    Any suggestions for parallel blogs? I have my painting blog at http://painting4art.blogspot.com/ and would love to create a WP version. The challenge is to post the same multimedia content in both blogs without going to each CMS. Email posting doesn’t let me post YouTube stuff as desired. Would love to hear back from ya’ll.

  • ... Category Order ...

  • ... geordend op alfabet. Wil je hier zelf een keuze in hebben dan raad ik je deze plug-in van Wesley Roche aan. 8. Je kunt ervoor kiezen om alle berichten volledig op de hoofdpagina weer te geven (dat is ...

  • November 9th, 2009 at 5:39 pm

    This plugin ONLY works HALF with my theme!

    I have two navigation bars, the one on top which works is Page.
    But the second bar, under neath, does not work, is Category!

    How come??

    My codes:

    Please help!! You are the god!!!

  • November 9th, 2009 at 5:40 pm

    My codes:

    
    			
  • November 9th, 2009 at 5:40 pm

    Why cant I paste the code here ? I use

    
    			
  • November 10th, 2009 at 11:48 am

    Why still you not reply me dude??

  • November 11th, 2009 at 8:09 pm

    hey there,

    i just wanted to know that you saved my day with this brilliant, simple plugin! works great on the site i am doing at the moment… i’ll definitely come back for more and order a beer for you!

  • Nero
    November 17th, 2009 at 3:17 am

    Not seems to work for 2.8.6,any upgrade?

  • Tobia
    November 18th, 2009 at 1:21 pm

    In database where can i get the saved information about order? thanks

  • November 20th, 2009 at 4:30 pm

    Thx for the plugin. It’s very useful.
    The plugin has a big:

    wp_list_categories(’show_count=0&title_li=&depth=1&use_desc_for_title=1&child_of=’.$this_category->cat_ID);

    Even if depth is specified your having your plugin activated will return all children regardless off the depth.

    If I specify orderby=id for instance (to skip your filter action) the expected nr. of children is returned. Please have a look and try to fix :)

    Cheers,
    Peter

  • December 1st, 2009 at 8:50 pm

    Drag&Drop funcionality doesent work in 2.8.5 ??? why ? :)

  • December 2nd, 2009 at 6:27 pm

    ... Category Order sortiert die angelegten Kategorien in beleibiger Reihenfolge ...

  • ... 另外:还有一个插件Category Order,其要实现的功能完全一样,本人没有试过,据说比较使用更加方便,感兴趣的朋友可以去看看。 ...

  • colin
    December 10th, 2009 at 8:09 pm

    Hi, I just activated this with version 2.8.6 and it works fine. Would it be possible to update it though for the future?

  • December 14th, 2009 at 2:19 pm

    Hi. Colin notes above that the plugin works fine on WP v2.8.6 however that has not been my experience. I’ve had the plugin installed for a few months with no troubles. Also no troubles when I upgraded to WP v2.8.6. However today after changing the hierarchy of my categories the plugin no longer reorders all the top-level categories. I have even deleted then reinstalled the plugin, and still the same issue.

  • December 21st, 2009 at 4:15 pm

    very usefull plugin. thank you!
    With respect,
    Alex.

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