Description

This is a compilation of many tweaks to improve your site, including…

Date Based Archives will show up from oldest to newest, instead of newest first. When you are scrolling through memory lane, you want to do it in order.
Adds the %dayofyear% tag so you can have your permalinks as /%year%/%dayofyear% instead of month and day.
Adds On This Day URLs and Widgets /onthisday
Adds This Week URLs and Widgets /thisweek
Adds /updated, /random, /oldest as top level archives
Adds the %week% tag so you can have your permalinks include the year and adds the option for 2021/W21 to indicate Week 21 of the year.
Adds the [tempus_onthisday] and [tempus_thisweek] shortcodes, which show the same lists as the widgets on any page. They accept title, number, taxonomy, term, and nonefound attributes, for example [tempus_onthisday title=”On This Day” taxonomy=”category” term=”travel”].
Adds a Random Memory widget and [tempus_random] shortcode that show a random post from all time, from this day in previous years, or from this week in previous years, optionally limited to a category, tag, or other term. For example [tempus_random period=”week” taxonomy=”post_tag” term=”family”].
On This Day and This Week also work on category, tag, and other taxonomy archives, such as /category/travel/onthisday/ and /tag/family/thisweek/. The widgets and shortcodes can be limited to a term.
Adds template functions for date archive navigation that link to the nearest earlier and later dates with posts, on day, month, year, week, and day-of-year archives.
Adds a Minor update checkbox to the classic editor that saves a post without changing its last updated date.

Privacy and Data Storage Notice

This plugin stores no private data.

AI Assistance

Development of version 1.3.0 was assisted by Claude Code, an AI coding assistant from Anthropic. Claude reviewed the plugin and proposed bug fixes, security hardening, documentation, and an automated test suite. Each change was submitted as a separate pull request and was reviewed and merged by the plugin author, who remains responsible for the plugin and its support.

Installation

Install and activate. No configuration by default.

FAQ

Why did you create this?: I realized I was doing a lot of these little enhancements in other places, buried in my other plugins, where they were only tangentially related to what the plugin was for.
So I split all of these time based enhancements into their own thing.

Reviews

There are no reviews for this plugin.

Contributors & Developers

“Tempus Fugit” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.

David Shanske

Translate “Tempus Fugit” into your language.

Interested in development?

Browse the code, check out the SVN repository, or subscribe to the development log by RSS.

Changelog

Version 1.3.0 ( 2026-09-30 )

Requires WordPress 6.2 and PHP 7.4. Tested up to WordPress 7.1, and with ClassicPress 2.
Fix: rewrite rules are registered correctly after activation, deactivation, and upgrades, so /onthisday, /thisweek, /updated, and similar URLs no longer return 404 until permalinks are saved again.
Fix: the widget settings form no longer causes a fatal error.
Fix: the On This Day and This Week widgets show previous years only again.
Fix: %dayofyear% counts from 1 (January 1 is 001), matching the day-of-year archives. Post URLs that use %dayofyear% move forward by one day.
Fix: weeks are ISO-8601 weeks everywhere. Week links near New Year use the ISO year, and week archives, This Week, and its widget no longer depend on the “Week starts on” setting.
Fix: archive links follow filtered slugs, and use the requested site’s permalink settings on multisite.
Fix: date navigation no longer takes the day from today’s date on month archives, applies its label arguments, and uses the site’s timezone.
Security: widget settings are sanitized, output is escaped, and plugin files can’t be loaded directly.
The sort and week query vars are renamed tempus_sort and tempus_week. Pretty URLs are unchanged.
On This Day and This Week work on category, tag, and other taxonomy archives, with archive titles that include the term.
The widgets can be limited to a category, tag, or other term, show new posts right away, and each keep their own cache.
Date navigation skips dates without posts and works on week and day-of-year archives.
/onthisday/MM/DD/ and /thisweek/NN/ list previous years only, like /onthisday and /thisweek.
Added the [tempus_onthisday], [tempus_thisweek], and [tempus_random] shortcodes.
Added the Random Memory widget.
Added a Minor update checkbox to the classic editor.
Deleting the plugin removes its data.
Documentation follows the WordPress PHP documentation standards, and the plugin has an automated test suite.

Version 1.2.0 ( 2024-05-12 )

Add functions for previous/next date archive that can be used in a theme

Version 1.1.3 ( 2023-12-25 )

Remove extra output link due duplicate code

Version 1.1.2 ( 2023-10-21 )

Fix issue with HTML escaping on widgets
Add week of post link calculator so week widget will link to the week page

Version 1.1.1 ( 2022-12-20 )

Load Series in ASC order

Version 1.1.0 ( 2022-06-12 )

Fix issue where queries for special pages hid dynamic menus
Adjust filter for this week to exclude previous 6 days, instead of calendar week due to inaccurate calculation

Version 1.0.9 ( 2021-11-11 )

No longer show this week or this day in those archives. Only show previous years.
Add in custom photos rewrite for On This Day and This Week features.

Version 1.0.8 ( 2021-08-08 )

Updated Widget Title Filter

Version 1.0.7 ( 2021-07-24 )

One final fix…should test better.

Version 1.0.6 ( 2021-07-24 )

Oops

Version 1.0.5 ( 2021-07-24 )

Adds week archives and week permalinks

Version 1.0.4 ( 2021-04-04 )

Add rewrite functions to activation hook to avoid load order issue

Version 1.0.3 ( 2021-03-19 )

Add Simple Location Map Rewrites
Add This Week Widget and URLs

Version 1.0.2 ( 2021-03-13 )

Link to day archive in On This Day widget
On This Day Widget Title links to On This Day Archive

Version 1.0.1 ( 2021-03-09 )

Fix Activation Only Issue

Version 1.0 (2021-03-09)

Initial Release