Associated Posts Pro

Associated Posts Pro is a state of the art WordPress Premium Plugin which enables you to bind all types of posts (like blog posts, pages or galleries) on your contents. You can easily select a set of posts by their taxonomies or authors and bind them on pages, posts and all your custom post types.

Contents

1. The free Lite Version
2. Features
3. Compatibility
4. Install and first steps
   1. Associate contents
   2. Selection Mode
5. Templates
   1. Create your own template
6. Shortcode
7. Options Page
8. Widget

The free Lite Version

In the Lite Edition of the plugin you can take a look around and you can associate posts with pages. Custom post types and taxonomies are not supported. On several places in the plugin you will find a notice that this function is included in the Pro Version. There is no support available for the Free Version. You can find the Download here.

Features

• Associate posts with all content types: Posts, Pages, Galleries, and more
• Associate Custom Post Types with each other
• Paginate your post listings
• Completely free of advertisement and brandings
• More default templates
• Optimized and faster Query algorithm
• Template upload form in the backend
• A widget which displays the associated posts
• Cleaned up user interface
• Premium support by the plugin author within hours
• Premium support for coders and webdesigners

Compatibility

• Requires WordPress 3.2 or higher on a Linux/Unix Server
• Compatible up to WordPress 3.5

Install and first steps

Before you can start to associate contents with each other you need to activate the plugin and you need to tell the plugin which types of content you want to use.

After activating the plugin you can find a new options page in your WordPress Dashboard: Settings -> Associated Posts. On this options page you will find a box with the title "Association Interface". Please tick all post types where you need the associated meta box.

Then scroll down to the "Selectable Taxonomies" box. There you need to select the taxonomies you want to use to select the contents you want to associate.

Tip: If you are not sure which checkboxes you need to tick just check them all. You can change your selection at any time later.

Please do not forget that you need to come back to the options page and tick more boxes if you add some more custom post types later.

Associate Contents

After you have setup the plugin successfully you can start associate your posts with each other. That's easy: Go to edit a page (or another post type you ticked on the options page in the "Association Interface" box). You will see a new meta box on the edit page screen with the title "Associated Posts". If you cannot see this box click on the top right corner of the page on the "Screen Options" button and activate the "Associated Posts" box.

In the association meta box you can select posts by the taxonomies you activated in the "Selectable Taxonomies" box on the options page.

For each post type and taxonomy you need to set a selection mode. The selection mode controls how the taxonomies you select will be handled. I want to explain this with an easy example with posts and post categories.

Selection Mode

If you want to associate posts by their categories with a page you need to use the following selection mode:

• "Add to my selection: All Posts which are at least in one of these Categories" means that all posts which are in one of the selected categories will be associated to the page you edit.
• "Filter my selection: Only Posts which are at least in one of these Categories" means that the posts which are selected through other taxonomies will be filtered and only posts which are in one or more of the selected categories will be kept in your selection.
• "Add to my selection: All Posts which are in all of these Categories" means that all posts which are in every category you selected will be associated to the page you edit.
• "Filter my selection: Only Posts which are in all of these Categories" means that all posts which are not in all of your selected categories will be filtered from your current selection.
• "Do not care about Categories" should be clear. It means that this taxonomy will not be used to associate posts to this page.

Tip: If you are not sure what to do and you want just add your posts to the page select "Add to my selection: All Posts which are at least in one of these Taxonomy".

Templates

The Associated Posts Pro Plugin will use templates to display the associated posts. A template controls the appearance of a set of posts and generates the HTML code. So you have the full control how your associated posts should look like and which HTML standard they follow. You can see all available templates on your options page: WordPress Dashboard -> Settings -> Associated Posts. And of course you can add your own.

Click on the options page on the box title "Add a Template". And new box should slide down where you can upload new templates.

Create your own template

To create your own template you only need elementary HTML and PHP knowledge. Create a new HTML file and start writing the header with the template details. Here is an example how the header should look like:

1
2
3
4
5
6
7

/*
AP Template: Template Name
Description: Your template description here.
Version: 1.0
Author: John Doe
Author URI: http://example.com
*/

To generate the HTML code you need to access the WP_Query Object of the associated posts via $this->Get_Associated_Posts() inside your template. This function returns a WP_Query object which is very well documented in the WordPress Codex. A good starting point is the default template. Please take a look on it before you start with your own one.

Shortcode

The shortcode [associated_posts] has no parameters. You can use it in your posts to change the position of the associated posts. If you do not use the shortcode it will be inserted automatically by the plugin. You can change the default position of the shortcode in the options page box with the title "Position".

Options Page

Widget

The Associated Posts Widget displays the associated posts of the current page. Please type in a widget title and select the template the widget should use.

1. Download the Lite or Pro Version of the plugin (it should be a .zip file).
2. Go to your WordPress Dashboard and login.
3. Deactivate all other versions of the plugin. (Especially deactivate the Lite version if you want to install the Pro version.)
4. Go to Plugins ->Add New -> Upload.
5. Upload the downloaded .zip file of the plugin.
6. After the upload was successful activate the plugin.
7. Now go to the options page in the settings section:
   • Setup the interfaces and post types you want to use.
   • Enter your account credentials in the "Updates" box to get the updates.

1.3.29
* Added new template: Title, Author, Date, Content

1.3.28
* Fixed the template description of the "Thumbnails and Title" template
* Added Post Type support for media items (post status: inherit)

1.3.27
* Updated default templates to valid HTML5/CSS3
* Move Update Module to Admin_Init event

1.3.26
* Added Danish translation by Thomas Jensen
* Cleaned up some code parts to avaid PHP Warnings
* Added the "associated_posts_association_data" filter
 
1.3.25
* Added Dutch translation by Hans van Halteren
 
1.3.24
* Added a template code output filter which prevents the templates from be spicked by HTML specials chars (wpautop, wptexturize)
 
1.3.23
* Added Windows Support (experimental)
 
1.3.22
* Fixed Remote Auto Update Bug
 
1.3.21
* fixed encoded API credentials while in update routine
 
1.3.20
* Sticky posts are always on top of your selection now.
 
1.3.19
* Fixed: Widget displays the associated posts even if it is loaded before the content
 
1.3.18
* Added page navigation to posts content.
 
1.3.17
* Increased filter priority for content filter to avoid incompatibilities with other content filtering plugins
 
1.3.16
* enabled more taxonomies
* fixed the "Filter my Selection" bug
 
1.3.15
* removed deprecated options
* changed class name and meta_key names to make Lite-to-Pro Upgrades easier
 
1.3.14
* Changed WP_Query argument 'tb' to pretend the Associated Posts Query is a trackback query.
 
1.3.13
* Fixed Auto Update feature
 
1.3.12
* Added 'widget_title' filter
* Changed Auto Update function to the new domain
 
1.3.11
* Fixed the Widget output
 
1.3.10
* Renamed 2Column-tempate to Two-Column template
* Fixed vertical align bug in Thumbnail-Title template
 
1.3.9
* Changed the 'the_content' filter and put the 'do_shortcode' function back.
* sourced the option page in a new file out.
 
1.3.8
* Added down compatibility for Post-Page-Associator
* Added new Feature: Disable Pagination for posts
 
1.3.7
* Fixed small JavaScript issues. Should be compatible with Simple:Press now.
 
1.3.6
* Fixed Two Column Template
 
1.3.5
* Cleaned up user interface and added labels to input elements
* Changed template engine. Every templates needs its own css class now.
 
1.3.4
* Workaround for WP3.2 behavior that pages are not "publicly_queryable" anymore
 
1.3.3
* Added a space around the auto inserted shortcodes
* Small options page liftings
* Changed the behavior of the "Display the associated posts only on single view" option
 
1.3.2
* Fixed the Line Breaks bug
 
1.3.1
* Added Auto-Update Feature
* New option to display the associated posts on single views only
* New option to display sticky posts above the associated posts
* New template to display a teaser of each post (with working <!--more--> tag)
* Fully compatible with WordPress MultiLanguage now
* More orderby options for the associated posts
* New cleared Meta Boxes with foldable User Interface
* Added Child- and Parent-Theme support
* Removed all warnings for WP 3.1
* Faster Post Query through optimized algorithm