Good to hear from you again, and thanks for your question and the link to one solution. A quick search of the WordPress Repository turns up two popular plugins which differ in their implementation:
Simple Taxonomy Ordering
Custom Taxonomy Order
Yours is the first request I’ve had for this feature. I am reluctant to commit to adding this to the MLA core plugin but I could investigate the work required to support one or both of the above plugins in [mla_term_list] and [mla_tag_cloud]. Would you be willing to accept that as an alternative?
Thread Starter
alx359
(@alx359)
Hi David, glad to hear from you, too. 🙂
Yes, of course, and thank you for your kind proposition. AFAIK, reordering is mostly a cosmetic endeavor that just uses a numeric menu_order field that seems fairly standard (currently I’m using it in WooCommerce). The cosmetic part could be done via any of those plugins mentioned, as of course understand that’s out the scope of MLA. The menu_order field though is interesting, as I have seen it referred in many places in MLA code, so I’m under the impression it’s already there, but just needs to be properly enabled for [mla_term_list]. Or is that menu_order serving a completely different purpose?
Thanks for the quick response; I will investigate further.
Regarding menu_order, WordPress provides this for posts, pages and Media Library items by supporting a database field in the wp_posts table. Taxonomies do not have an equivalent field in WordPress.
As I wrote in my first post, the two plugins I found add this feature in different ways. The “Simple Taxonomy Ordering” plugin uses the “term meta” capability added to WordPress v4.7+. The “Custom Taxonomy Order” adds a database column of its own to the wp_term table.
It looks like “Simple Taxonomy Ordering” cleans up when it’s deleted, but “Custom Taxonomy Order” just gives instructions for manual database modifications to remove its column and options.
I have uploaded a new MLA Development Version dated 20200504 that adds support for the Simple Taxonomy Ordering plugin. You can find step-by-step instructions for using the Development Version in this earlier topic:
PHP Warning on media upload with Polylang
Once the Development Version you can add orderby=tax_position to your [mla_tag_cloud] or [mla_term_list] shortcodes to sort the list into the “drag and drop” order created by the Simple Taxonomy Ordering plugin.
It would be great if you can install the Development Version, try the new feature and let me know if you find any problems. Thanks for motivating this MLA enhancement, and for your continued interest in the plugin.
Thread Starter
alx359
(@alx359)
Hi David,
Thanks very much for the so quick availability of this new orderby feature!
The new feature seems to work as intended but for parent-child hierarchies only. It isn’t sorting right for me the grandparent-parent-child ones.
For example, ordered these manually in the backend:
Crafts
- Prints
-- A1 Prints
-- A3 Prints
- Woodblocks
- Jewelboxes
-- Square Box
-- Long Box
- Cards
but getting this order instead in the frontend:
Crafts
- Woodblocks
- Cards
- Prints
-- A1 Prints
-- A3 Prints
- Jewelboxes
-- Square Box
-- Long Box
Don’t know if matters, but I’m also filtering out some other ID’s as well (not displayed above). Here’s the shortcode used:
[mla_term_list taxonomy=attachment_category orderby=tax_position mla_markup=term-list-flatsome exclude_tree='226,213,227,18089']
Thanks for trying out the new feature and for your report.
I have reproduced the issue you posted and I am investigating the feasibility of a fix. I will post an update when I have progress to report.
By the way, in the course of adding and rearranging the terms you’re using in your example I did find that under some circumstances Simple Taxonomy Ordering will be unable to make the drag and drop order changes persistent. That doesn’t apply to your example but it happened twice in my experiments.
I have uploaded a new MLA Development Version dated 20200508 that fixes the multi-level hierarchy sorting for the Simple Taxonomy Ordering plugin. You can find step-by-step instructions for using the Development Version in this earlier topic:
PHP Warning on media upload with Polylang
t would be great if you can install the Development Version and let me know if you find any additional problems. Thanks for helping to test out this MLA enhancement.
Thread Starter
alx359
(@alx359)
Thank you, David, for the 20200508 update! The multi-level hierarchy sorting issue seems fixed now.
Also noticed the persistency issue with Simple Taxonomy Ordering on Live (Linux) but not so on stage (WAMP). Wasn’t able to persist at all another different branch of parent-child items. Started purging the cache, switching stuff off and back on and at some point it started working. Not yet reproducible, unfortunately.
Thanks again!
Alex
Thanks for your update with the good news.
You wrote “Wasn’t able to persist at all another different branch of parent-child items.” That may be the same problem I had while setting up your example. In some cases I found that a child term was assigned a “tax_position” number lower than the parent term. When that happens the Simple Taxonomy Ordering plugin will not update the “tax_position” no matter how you drag and drop those terms. I fixed it by manually editing the database values for the broken terms, which was very tedious.
This enhancement will go out in the next MLA version. I am marking this topic resolved, but please update it if you have any additional problems or further questions about MLA support for Simple Taxonomy Ordering. Thanks again for inspiring this MLA enhancement.
Thread Starter
alx359
(@alx359)
Hi again David,
Just noticed a bug. When disabling the “Simple Taxonomy Ordering” plugin, the [mla_term_list] crashes with the following entry in debug log:
WordPress database error You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MariaDB server version for the right syntax to use near '' at line 1 for query SELECT * FROM ( SELECT t.term_id, t.name, t.slug, t.term_group, tt.term_taxonomy_id, tt.taxonomy, tt.description, tt.parent, COUNT(p.ID) AScountFROMwp_termsAS t INNER JOINwp_term_taxonomyAS tt ON t.term_id = tt.term_id LEFT JOINwp_term_relationshipsAS tr ON tt.term_taxonomy_id = tr.term_taxonomy_id LEFT JOINwp_postsAS p ON ( tr.object_id = p.ID AND p.post_type IN ('attachment') AND p.post_status IN ('inherit') ) WHERE ( tt.taxonomy IN ('attachment_category') ) GROUP BY tt.term_taxonomy_id ORDER BY count DESC, t.term_id ASC ) AS subQuery ORDER BY made by require('wp-blog-header.php'), require_once('wp-includes/template-loader.php'), include('/themes/flatsome/page-right-sidebar.php'), get_sidebar, locate_template, load_template, require_once('/themes/flatsome/sidebar.php'), dynamic_sidebar, WP_Widget->display_callback, MLATextWidget->widget, apply_filters('widget_text'), WP_Hook->apply_filters, do_shortcode, preg_replace_callback, do_shortcode_tag, MLAShortcodes::mla_term_list_shortcode, MLAShortcode_Support::mla_term_list_shortcode, MLAShortcode_Support::mla_term_list, MLAShortcode_Support::mla_get_terms
Also, I probably made a mistake when suggesting this plugin w/o further tests, as just noticed it doesn’t support sorting/ordering of pages (which I have a lot of). How feasible it is now to eventually support other more advanced sorting/ordering plugins? There seems to be plenty of them in the WP repository. Is it there anything special I need to look for?
Thanks again!
Thanks for your report and the details from the log. I have found and corrected the MLA defect I introduced while adding Simple Taxonomy Ordering support. I will update the Development Version shortly, but in the interim simply removing the orderby=tax_position parameter from the shortcode will avoid the problem.
Regarding other plugins, it’s a case-by-case investigation. The other plugin I found (Custom Taxonomy Order) wouldn’t be too hard to support. If you find one you really like, give me a link and I will investigate further.
Thanks for your help with this.
Thread Starter
alx359
(@alx359)
Great to know you’ve fixed the SQL issue, and thanks very much for your kind willingness to add MLA compatibility with other custom sorting plugins!
Have looked into most of these plugins found in the WP repository (about 15 of them). The one that IMO stands out overall, regarding seamless WP integration with an uncluttering UI, support for custom taxonomies and post types as well, and a general sense it’s established and still well supported, is “Simple Custom Post Order” by ColorLib. Visually, it behaves the same as “Simple Taxonomy Ordering” but also does pages. Hope you’d find it of your liking, and easy enough to integrate with MLA.
Thanks so much once again!
Thanks for your research into other “custom ordering” plugins.
I have uploaded a new MLA Development version dated 20200514 that fixes the defect you identified and adds support for the “Simple Custom Post Order” by ColorLib plugin. I have retained support for the Simple Taxonomy Ordering plugin as well.
It would be great if you can install the Development Version and let me know if you find any additional problems. Thanks for helping to test out these MLA enhancements.
Thread Starter
alx359
(@alx359)
Thanks for the update. After upgrading MLA to 20200514, the SQL issue seems fixed, but the manual order via “Simple Custom Post Order” (SCPO) by ColorLib isn’t working for me. The Att. Category manual order seems to get saved, but nothing changes in the front-end. Have tested with localhost WAMP and on linux live, following the usual common-sense steps I could think of (clearing old settings before uninstalling the previous “Simple Taxonomy Ordering” plugin, clearing cache, etc.). Nothing in the php_error.log, nor unusual in QM either.
The [mla_term_list] tag is still the same:
[mla_term_list taxonomy=attachment_category orderby=tax_position mla_markup=term-list-flatsome exclude_tree='226,213,227,18089']
The Settings > SCPOorder page has options for resetting the custom order of Post Types, but not of taxonomies. There’s also a “Check to see advanced view of Post Types” that I don’t know what it does but have enabled anyway.
Seems a DB incompatibility issue? Kindly advise how to debug this.
Please accept my apologies for the inconvenience I’ve put you to. I neglected to tell you the most important part of switching from Simple Taxonomy Ordering to the Simple Custom Post Order plugin.
You must change your orderby parameter from “tax_position” to “term_order”. I assigned different values to make it easier for my code to tell which plugin to support. I added this information to the Documentation tab but I forgot to add it to my earlier post in this topic.
Give orderby=term_order a try and let me know if you have any remaining issues.
