Tutorial

This is a quick guide, with screenshots, to show you how to set up the plugin’s Settings for the current version of the plugin.

Download

DownloadDownload the latest version Serial Links v1.0.

Using the plugin

The plugin is designed to display the list of Serial Links when you view the single post page of an article which is a member of a Serial. Therefore, you need to assign relevant link posts to a Serial (see below) and use one of the following two methods for displaying the list: a shortcode and a template tag, either of which may be used. It is recommended that you use one or the other, but not both, in accordance with your needs and preferences. Template tag: To use the template tag, add the Serial Links template tag to your single post theme template file, typically single.php or index.php depending on your theme, wherever you want to display the list of links.

<?php serial_links(); ?>

A typical place to put this code is after the article main heading or, more commonly, at the end of the post content, ie somewhere after the the_content() function call. The Serial Links template tag must appear within the Loop, which normally starts with this code:

<?php if ( have_posts)... ; ?>

and ends with:

<?php endwhile; endif; ?>

Shortcode: Add this shortcode directly into the post editor when writing or editing a post.

[seriallinks]

Assigning a Links to a Serial

When writing or editing a Post, create a Custom Field Key called Links and give it a value of the name of your series. For example, My New Series. You can create as many different Values for this Custom Field Key as you like – but you can only ever assign one Serial name to any one Post. This means that you can create several Serial Links comprising various Posts within your blog. The following screenshot shows the creation of a Serial name called “Beginner Blogger”. Note that the Custom Field Key of Links must be typed exactly as shown.How to assign a Serial name to a Post using Custom fields

After adding custom field click on admin >> Links >> Add new links and enter the name of the link, address and description as shown below
How to assign a Serial name to a Post using Custom fields
After this go to down there you will be seeing Advanced field in that at Notes you have the give the same name that have given in Custom field i.e Beginner Blogger
How to assign a Serial name to a Post using Custom fields
Save this…

Configuring the plugin Settings page

The Serial Links configuration page is accessed through the main Dashboard menu, Settings > Serial Links. This is where you configure how the List Heading appears above the list of Serial Links, and where you can select options for including the currently viewed post within the list and, if so, whether or not this post should appear as a link. The options are as follows:

  • Text before Serial name:
  • Text after Serial name:
  • List <ul> class

There is also a Reset all options to Default settings checkbox, should you wish to re-load the default settings and overwrite your own settings.

Examples showing how the Settings affect the display of the Serial Links list.

The following screenshots show three examples of how to configure the Text before Serial name and Text after Serial name options. The purpose of these two fields is to enable you to add some text before and/or after the Serial name. Basically, the list heading can consist of three elements as follows: Text before Serial name – Serial name – Text after Serial nameEach element is separated by a space. Therefore, you may need to be a little imaginative with the placement of punctuation in order to get the list to look as you want. (Note to self: may add a neater way of dealing with punctuation in a future release.) Please note that the Serial name is always shown as a heading for the list of posts. If you only want to show the Serial name, blank out the Text before Serial name and Text after Serial name fields and click the Update Options button. In the following examples I have assigned a Serial name of Beginner Blogger to three posts. The screenshots show the Settings and the resulting output when viewing one of these three posts. For simplicity’s sake, the images show only the relevant part of the page.

Example 1: Using text before and after

In this example I’ve added text in both the Text before Serial name and Text after Serial name fields. Using text before and text after the Serial name And the result: Using text before and text after the Serial name

Example 2: Using text after only

In this example I’ve blanked out the Text before Serial name field and added some text in the Text after Serial name field. Using text  after the Serial name And the result: Using text after the Serial name

Example 3: Using text before only

In this example I’ve added some text in the Text before Serial name field and blanked out the Text after Serial name field. Using text  before the Serial name And the result: Using text after the Serial name Hopefully these three examples show you how flexible these options are.

Other Resources

Please refer to the dedicated Serial Links Configuration page for further details of installation, configuration and usage.