Simple Yearly Archive Plugin// Making Archiving Easy & Elegant

Simple Yearly Archive is a rather neat and simple WordPress plugin that allows you to display your archives in a year-based list. It works mostly like the usual WP archive, but displays all published posts seperated by their year of publication. That said, it’s also possible to restrict the output to certain categories, and much more.

The plugin in action
The plugin requires WordPress 3.7+

  1. Download the plugin and unzip it.
  2. Upload the folder simple-yearly-archive/ to your /wp-content/plugins/ folder.
  3. Activate the plugin from your WordPress admin panel.
  4. Installation finished.

  1. Deactivate the plugin from your WordPress admin panel.
  2. Upload the folder simple-yearly-archive/ to your /wp-content/plugins/ folder and overwrite the existing file.
  3. Activate the plugin from your WordPress admin panel.

Implementation / Usage

Since WordPress 2.5 the function can be called with a shortcode:
[SimpleYearlyArchive]
Some examples follow - each is a proper invocation of the plugin:
[SimpleYearlyArchive]
[SimpleYearlyArchive type="yearly_past"]
[SimpleYearlyArchive type="1249077600-1280527200"]
[SimpleYearlyArchive type="yearly" exclude="22,11"]
[SimpleYearlyArchive exclude="22,11"]
[SimpleYearlyArchive include="10,11"]
[SimpleYearlyArchive dateformat="%d/%m"]
[SimpleYearlyArchive posttype="my_product"]
Call the simpleYearlyArchive function like so:
simpleYearlyArchive('type', 'ExcludeCategoryIDs', 'DateFormat');
Some examples follow - each is a proper invocation of the plugin:
simpleYearlyArchive();
simpleYearlyArchive('','1');
simpleYearlyArchive('yearly','4,7,9');
simpleYearlyArchive('yearly_act','');
simpleYearlyArchive('1249077600-1280527200','');
simpleYearlyArchive('yearly_past','1,2');
simpleYearlyArchive('yearly_past','','1,2');
simpleYearlyArchive('yearly','','', 'my_product');
Parameter options are like following:

  • type (defaults to 'yearly'):
    - yearly: Displays a year-based list (Default). Can be empty aswell.
    - yearly_act: Only posts from the current year are displayed.
    - yearly_past: Only posts from the past years are displayed.
    - "date of year": Only posts from the given year are displayed.
    - "<unixtime-from>-<unixtime-to>": Only posts from the given (unix)time period are displayed.
  • ExcludeCategoryIDs:
    - A comma-separated list of category IDs you want to exclude.
  • IncludeCategoryIDs:
    - A comma-separated list of category IDs you want to include.
  • PostType (defaults to 'post'):
    - A registered post type to show.
  • DateFormat:
    - The date format string, according to http://php.net/strftime.

In order to run your blog proper and clean code, it's highly recommended to check if a plugin exists before calling it. If the plugin is not activated, it will "break" the theme and it may report errors or fail to load. It is therefore imperative to prevent the plugin from being detected in case it is turned off:
[php]if (function_exists('simpleYearlyArchive')) {
simpleYearlyArchive('yearly','4,7,9');
}[/php]

Options menu

There are a couple of options in the Simple Yearly Archive options menu.

  • Date format:
    The date output be customized. Check http://php.net/strftime for date formatting.
  • Seperator between date and post title:
    The seperator is displayed between the date and the post title.
  • Linked years?:
    Wanna have the years linked?
  • Before / After (Year headline):
    HTML tags, that will be inserted before and after the date headlines.
  • Show post count for each year?:
    Show the total post count behind for each year?
  • Show comments count for each post?:
    Show comments count behind each post?
  • Show categories after each post?:
    Show categories behind each post? The output can be styled with the CSS class sya_categories.
  • Show optional Excerpt (if available)?:
    Show the optional excerpt below each post title, if available?
  • Max. chars of Excerpt (0 for default):
    How much chars of the excerpt to show? Enter 0 to show the entire excerpt.
  • Indentation of Excerpt (in px):
    How much pixels the excerpt should be indented.
  • Link back to my website in plugin footer?:
    Consider linking back to my homepage in the plugin's footer.

 

952 Responses

  1. Same question as before:
    How do I get to display the archive as in your demo.
    2017 (67)
    2016 (19)
    2015 (12)

    Please help me with this!

      • I also have the same problem:
        How do I get to display the archive as in your demo.
        2017 (67)
        2016 (19)
        2015 (12)
        I added <h3 and to the before and after option and I used this shortcode: [SimpleYearlyArchive type="yearly_past"]
        For the next hour the short code worked perfectly. Then it stopped displaying the shortcode results on the archive page.
        I was still able to add text to the page and it was displayed properly. I did not make any changes to the settings page prior
        to it stopping displaying the results of the shortcode. I disabled all of the plugins except simple yearly archive and it still
        did not start working. I cleared cache, cleared browser cache, tried using a different browser, turned off the browser, uninstalled
        the plug in three times, downloaded the version from your website and installed it and none of these things made any difference.
        The shortcode still did not display anything.
        Is there anything else that I can try or do you have a quick fix to the code?

        Your documentation says that this plugin is Compatible up to: 5.5.9999. The server just recently automatically updated wordpress
        up to 5.6. Could this be my problem? If so do you have any idea as to when you will be 5.6 compatible or when this would be fixed?

        Thank you for your response.

        • Hi Lou, sounds like the Gutenberg editor stripped the shortcode from the content on saving. Please have a look at the page’s content if the Simple Yearly Archive shortcode is still present.

  2. Expat Gone ForeignJune 2, 2018 at 8:36 pm

    Hi Oliver,

    Thanks for this plugin! I have a quick question:

    My page now displays the archives like this:

    2018
    2017
    2016
    and so on.

    When I quick on a specific year, for instance 2018, X number of posts are displayed under 2018.

    My question is if there’s any way to display every posts under every year without having to click on each year. I’d like visitors to click on the page where I have the archive and already be able to see each posts under each year without having to click on them.

    Is that possible?

    Thanks!

  3. So is there a way to make it so that it will limit the list to a user defined period based on the current time? Like only posts from the past week or month? Or perhaps limit the total number of posts, like only displaying the last 200 posts? Thanks.

    • As for limiting the list by time period please take a look at the “Implementation / Usage” section on this page, specifically the “type” parameter.

      As for limiting the output to e.g. 200 posts just add the following code to the end of your theme’s functions.php file:

      add_filter( 'sya_get_posts', function() {
          return array(
              'numberposts' => 200
          );
      });
      • Thank you so much! That last bit to limit by number of posts worked like a charm! Thank you so much for such a wonderful plugin!

  4. Hi Oliver

    (I thought I asked this a couple of weeks ago, but cannot find the post now. Maybe I posted somewhere else or made another mistake. Hope I didn’t offend you in some way and it got deleted. Anyway, I’ll try again)

    Because the digits in the font I use have different widths, I cannot find a way of getting the first character of my titles to line up perfect vertically in the archive list. Can you suggest a way of achieving this with the current release? If not, would you kindly consider some feature to allow this in a future release?

    Many thanks

    Steve

  5. Ritchie Pettauer | datenschmutz.netJuly 20, 2018 at 1:18 pm

    Hi Oliver,

    great plugin – I’ve been looking to implement a yearly archive for quite a while. CSS is clearly structured, the options are great.

    I only miss one feature: I’m using some custom image sizes which are registered with the WordPress media library. Would it be possible to use one of these image sizes instead of the five standard ones? (I don’t want the features images to get cropped).

    greetings,
    Ritchie

    • Hi Ritchie, actually your custom image sizes should appear in the plugin’s thumbnail drowndown for your to select. Doesn’t it for you?

  6. Hi Oliver

    Is there a way i can make the yearly achieve list to show on another page if the list is too long?

    1990
    1989
    1987
    1986
    1985
    1984

    then we have a NEXT BUTTOM to go to another page.

    • Hi Elisha, you can use the “type” parameter, e.g.

      [SimpleYearlyArchive type="yearly_act"]

      to display only posts from the current year

      [SimpleYearlyArchive type="yearly_past"]

      to display only posts from the past years

      [SimpleYearlyArchive type="2017"]

      to display only posts from 2017

  7. Hello,
    i am strugling to display only one category. I am using

    [SimpleYearlyArchive type="yearly" exclude="x"]

    where i replace x by the category name. But it doesn’t work. The category is not excluded.
    Can you hepl me with this?

    Thanks!
    Lim

  8. Hello Oliver,

    Thanks for the plugin, very great!

    There’s only one thing that I am not getting fixed. I use collapsible years, but I can’t find a good way to hide the bullets at every result of the output.

    Do you have a solution for me on how to hide these bullets at every list result?

    Thanks in advance,
    Tim

    • Hi Tim, adding the following to your theme’s style.css should do the trick:

      .sya_container > ul {
        list-style: none;
        margin-left: 0;
      }
      
  9. Hi. I´d like to show in yearly archive only posts with one certain category (let´say the category ID is “15”). Which shortcode I have to use?

    • Hi Tarmo,

      [SimpleYearlyArchive include="x"]

      where x is the category ID you’d like to show posts from.

  10. I installed Simple Yearly Archive earlier this year using the [SimpleYearlyArchive] shortcode.

    All I want is each year to display in the list, with the year being hotlinked to a list of posts for that year. And that’s how it displayed when I originally installed the plugin.

    But now, below the year, it’s displaying the title of each post along with the year. i.e., in a list format.

    I have changed nothing since the initial install. Everything looked fine at the time (only the hotlinked years displayed in the list).

    I’m running WP 4.9.8 in Astrid theme.

    The current plugin settings are:

    Date Format: Y
    Before / After (Year headline):
    Collapsible years?: Checked

    All other checkboxes are empty.

    Please let me know what I need to do to go back to my original display (years only).

    Thanks!

    • Hi Roh,

      > But now, below the year, it’s displaying the title of each post along with the year. i.e., in a list format.

      actually that’s what the plugin always was supposed to do. Just change “Date Format: Y” to “Date Format: m/d” to get rid of the year in front of the post title.

      The “Collapsible years” option should just show the years. May you please post a link to your archive page?

      Thank you!

  11. Hi Oliver,
    I can’t seem to get it to show the excerpts. I activated the checkbox and entered 0 as well as 500 characters to be displayed. My front end shows the following html elements:

    28.09.

    I’m assuming the excerpt should be inside of cite but as you can see, nothing ends up being put there. The post does have content.
    What might be going on?
    Thanks,
    Phil

  12. Is there a way to take our archive of membership newsletters (in pdf format) and trick it to be a dated “post” so that I can use this tool?

    • Hi Louise, in case these membership newsletters are a custom post type you could just use the shortcode

      [SimpleYearlyArchive posttype=""]
  13. A last question until I have my archive exactly as I want it. I have a bullet showing between each post line, not in front of it. How do I rid myself of that?

  14. Hi There.

    is it possible only to show the years as a link? If i uncheck every option except only linked years – i have exactly what i want PLUS Date and title. I have to avoid Date and title in this case.

    would be glad to have an answer.

  15. Hi! I am a completely newbie. I found your plugin and I am still learning how to use it. I successfully managed to create an Archive to show all my posts chronologically, which is what I wanted. Now I want to change the color of the post titles (from my theme’s ugly red to my favourite blue). Searching online I get a lot of suggestions to add code to the Additional CCs, but none of them are working for me. I wonder whether this is something that is related to the plugin? Is there any way the plugin might be interfering? Or can I use it to change the colors?

    Whatever the answer, I am having a blast discovering a completely new world for me^^

    • Hi Guillermo, adding the following additional CSS should do the trick:

      .sya_container .sya_postcontent a {
        color: blue;
      }

      Just change “blue” to whatever color you want.

  16. Wow, I can barely believe it, but it actually worked! It is like sorcery to me 😀

    This post motivated me to start learning CSS code in order to be able to work out solutions for problems myself, but I guess it might take a while. In the meantime, I have one last question for you if you don’t mind: your code successfully changed the post’s color, but the year remained red, you can see what I mean here

    https://imgur.com/a/6lWgT6o

    Is it possible to write some code to chose the year’s color?

    Again, thank you so much for what you do, it is greatly appreciated and makes donating to these kind of projects a pleasure.

    • Hi Guillermo,

      you can use the following CSS code to change the year’s color:

      .sya_container h3, .sya_container h3 a {
         color: blue;
      }
  17. I have just installed the program and get the following output on a page that uses [SimpleYearlyArchive], The problem is that the bullet is on a separate line.

    2018
    – “bullet”
    Sample Post 1
    – “bullet”
    Sample Post 2

    2017

    Possible cause of wrong format could be in the simple yearly archive settings page, the input box Max. chars of Excerpt (0 for default) has “100” entered and I cannot remove it or change it. I have tried clearing my cache, but to no avail. It should not matter as – Show optional Excerpt (if available)? is not checked.

    Thanks

    • Hi there,

      that seems like a CSS issue to me. May you please provide a link to your archive page so I can have a look at it? As a wild guess I think setting the links to display:inline; will do the trick.

  18. I have a question similar to Elisha. I have approximately 1300 posts throughout the years. I would like to know if it is possible to limit the total per page, regardless of the year.

    Or even still, just have it create a new page on a per year basis. That way when someone clicks the archive page, they still have access to all of the archives, but they are not on a single page with 1300 results.

    • Hi Billy, the plugin does not offer pagination or automatic creation of year-based archive pages, but a solution would be to create two pages: one for listing current year’s posts and one for all the other years’ posts.

      The shortcode for the current year’s posts page would be:

      [SimpleYearlyArchive type="yearly_act"]

      The shortcode for the other years’ posts page would be:

      [SimpleYearlyArchive type="yearly_past"]

      This way you wouldn’t have to creat another archive page for each year because the page with [SimpleYearlyArchive type="yearly_act"] on it will always display the current year’s posts.

      Apart from that there are ways to limit the number of posts being listed by using WordPress filters but you wouldn’t have pagination.

  19. Hello, and thank you for a wonderful plugin!

    I am wondering if it’s possible to have the list of posts expanded by default, so that the user will see the list of posts without clicking on a year? Or, perhaps even better, that the most recent year is expanded by default, and the previous years will expand when clicked?

    Sorry for asking if this question is already answered here – I found it quite impossible to navigate and search the comment section here.

    Thanks again for a great plugin!

    All the best,
    Eivind

    • Hi Eivind, the list of posts is expanded by default for all years unless you enable the option “Collapsible years?” in the plugin settings. So if you have the checkbox checked, unchecking it will do the trick here.

  20. Dear Oliver,

    does anyone know a way to edit the plugin, so its possible to have school years (sebtember 2018 – august 2019)

  21. Hi. I’m trying to use your plugin in a sidebar as an archive menu. Is it possible for the list of posts (within a year) to stay open when clicked and for the active post to be highlighted when this post has been opened?

  22. hallo, danke für das einfach und praktische plug-in. gibt es eine möglichkeit es für custom-post-types zu nutzen? ich nutze das CPT UI plug-in immer wieder um seiten besser zu strukturieren und da wäre es toll, das yearly-archiv auch dafür nutzen zu können.
    beste grüße, michael.

  23. I wanted a simple list without dates or years. I commented out line 543 to achieve it. I’d prefer that the year be encased in a css addressable element like or . Then I can simply display: none; to get the effect of a simple list without dates or years. Anyway, your plugin does the job – it’s just that the next time you update, I’ll have to remember to comment out the line that presents the years.

    • Hi Joseph, may you please provide a link to your archive page so I might be able to provide you a way to hide your year headers.

      • Hi Oliver, is there an easy way to hide the year?
        I basically don’t want to see the 2022, 2020. I just want a list of all posts.
        Thanks 🙂

        site is: theresa.me

        • Hi Theresa,

          1. On the plugin settings page add <h3> and </h3> for the setting “Before / After (Year headline)”.

          2. Add the following CSS to the end of your theme’s style.css:

          .sya_container h3 { display: none; }
          .sya_container ul { margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0; }
  24. I thinks this is a cool plugin. But I cant get it to work in my sidebar:
    I am using PHP + HTML plugin

    THIS IS the php code I am using to execute the shortcode.

    My goal is to show a “collapsed list” :
    Click on the year, and the posts for that year will show underneath

    I have both blog and premium material. I want to show the BLOG material using the “include=” option.

    • Hi Todd, the shortcode you posted seems to be stripped. May you please post it again? Thank you!

  25. Hi..Thanks for this plugin..i have installed recently..but year show in ascending order?how can i display descending order?

  26. Guten Tag Oliver,

    I really like this plugin as it is a simple and neat way to show all posts.
    However, I found that the shortcode confilcts with qTranslate-XT.
    This plugin uses shortcodes like this [:nl]Nederlandse inhoud[:en]English content[:]
    For some reason your shortcode is only visible on the first language but not under the second one. I guess it functions as an end code for qTranslate-XT (like this [:] ). Are you aware of this?
    The example can be viewed here:
    https://www.jurgenenkatja.nl/posts/

    Blessings,
    Jurgen

  27. Great Plugin,

    but the shortcode [SimpleYearlyArchive] alone is not working! When I use [SimpleYearlyArchive type="yearly_act"] it´s working.

    cheers in advance

    heiko

    • Hi Heiko, what version of WP are you running? Just tested it on a fresh WP 5.3 installation and the shortcode [SimpleYearlyArchive] seems to be working fine.

  28. Hi! Thanks for this very convenient plugin!
    Is it possible to tell the plugin to open archive entries to a new tab instead of the same window?

    Kind regards,
    Steffen

    • Hi Steffen, there’s no setting providing that, but maybe using JS to add target attributes to the link may do the trick.

  29. Hi Oliver,
    Thanks again for an awesome plugin!
    Is there a way I can change the font size? I tried with a CSS script but it only changed the size of the post titles, not the dates.

    Also, any way to get rid of the dot points and just have a list?

    Thank you so much,
    Joel

  30. How can I display the years in a list
    2020 (50)
    2019 (50)
    etc.
    rather than 2020 (50) 2019 (50) etc.
    I have looked through the comments and find the question but not the answer.
    Also, is it possible to have the months collapsed within the year? So that when I open the year it looks like this:
    2020
    January
    February
    March
    Then I can click on the month to expand…
    Thanks for your help

  31. Hi Oliver,

    I like to use your Simple Yearly Archive Plugin, but have a short question.
    Is this plugin translatable by WPML for the following languages: Dutch, German, French and English.
    Thanks for your very appreciated reply.

    Best Regards,
    Staf Campforts

    • Hi Staf, yes it is compatible with WPML for any language you set up using WPML on your website.

  32. Hi Oliver,

    Thank you for your reply.
    I am testing now the free plugin and made some lists.
    I looked for the option to group the posts in a list per year. I mean, to collapse the list in groups per year. When you click on a year, the posts of that particular year will be displayed.
    Is this possible, and how to make it that way.
    Thank you for your very appreciated reply.

    Best regards,
    Staf Campforts

  33. Hi Oliver,

    Thanks for your goodwork what u did, I am really like your plugin.

    my post-type in the wordpress database is “archive” instead of “post”, Is there a code to show my posts with post-type archive on my page?

    Thanks in advance

  34. Hi, I am using it on all pages but I just want Collapsible option on one page, if I checked ‘Collapsible years?’ in backend so all pages archive posts collapsed. But I jsut want it on one page only. Is there any option to add in the shortcode to show only one page, not all pages.

    Thanks.

    • Hi Ajay, currently it’s not possible to set all options via shortcode, but maybe in a future release.

  35. Hi Oliver,
    I’ve just installed your plugin. But it dosn’ matter how I setup the excerpt settings – they won’t be shown at my page. Is there anything what to look for when writing articles?
    Best regards
    Matthias

    • Hi Matthias, sorry for the late reply!

      I assume you have enabled “Show optional Excerpt (if available)?” in the plugin’s settings?

  36. Hi,

    Great plugin!

    I was wondering if there’s a way to exclude certain years? I’ve got 2020-2018, but I don’t want to display anything from 2018 is there a way to do that?

  37. Hi Oliver,

    bin absoluter Neuling und fux mich gerade mit Plugins etc durch um die Vereins-Seite zu erstellen. Dein Plug-In ist genau was ich gesuchte habe um die Veranstaltungen entsprechend darzustellen. Plugin installiert, wird auch dargestellt: “2020 (5)” wenn ich allerdings die 2020 anklicke, springt er nur nach oben auf der Seite und klappt nicht aus.. Eine Idee was ich hier falsch machen?

    Grüße
    Tom

  38. hi there—

    i want a simple list of years, just as you have on your demo. but when i install your plugin and instert [SimpleYearlyArchive] into a html widget, all the years run together and do not appear on their own line. how can that be changed?

  39. I want to show documents belonging to a category that are not into another but when I tried to use [[SimpleYearlyArchive include="x" exclude="y"] all documents that belong to category x are shows even their are also in y.
    I need something like “list all category included in x that are not in y”.
    Thank you in adavance

  40. Hello,

    I have installed and activated the Simply Yearly Plugin and used [SimpleYearlyArchive type="yearly_past"] in the backend of WordPress. I have archived over 100 posts using LH Archive Post Status. When I preview the Archive page, however, it only shows two archived posts form 2019 that actually haven’t been archived.

    Should I use a different plugin to archive posts?

    Thanks in advance.

    • Hi Katy, the plugin lists your posts by year and does not take archived posts from another plugin into account. You’re probably needing another plugin here, sorry. 🙂

  41. Hi Oliver,
    Thank you for your work and happy 2021!

    I was wondering if there is easy way to further archive the posts by month. Is it easy to add this option?

    Best,
    Fabio

    • Hey Fabio, as the plugin name implies it only lists the posts by year hence there’s no such option, sorry.

      Maybe give “Compact Archives” a try?

  42. Hi there

    I can’t seem to get the clickable ‘year’ links to works. The screen just jumps to the rope when you click on it. But if I take collapsing links off the posts show in a list. But I want to use the clickable fly out links.

    If you could guide me. I have a test page you can see here with the clickable links selected you will see when you click the year the page jumps to the top.

    https://fragmented.me.uk/test-page/

    Thanks
    Denise

    • Hey Denise, try adding <h2> / </h2> to the “Before / After (Year headline)” fields in the plugin’s settings.

  43. Hello Oliver,

    Thanks for this great plugin. I am wondering if you have a quick way to format the years in columns? Or if you might think about just adding a wrapper tag around each year/list so that we can add our own CSS to achieve this?

    🙂

    • Hi again,

      I think it would also be good to make the year title an actual heading tag for formatting consistent with the theme as well as semantic structuring for accessibility. I edited the plugin in my site and thought you might be able to implement it pretty easily into the next version if it doesn’t seem to interfere with anything else from your perspective.

      Here is a screenshot of the 3 edits I made to the simple-yearly-archive.php file:
      https://www.maxms.com/sya-edits.png

      What do you think?

    • Hi Mary, actually the years are already formatted in “columns” to be displayed horizontally as seen here: https://www.schloebe.de/archiv/

      Do you happen to have an example link to show what it looks like in your template/theme?

      Thank you! 🙂

  44. Hi, I was wondering if I can let the date of my post show after the post title, instead of before the post title. I have tried some things, but I don’t really know what I’m doing..

    • Hi Mark, have you tried adding the following to your theme’s style.css file?

      .sya_container .sya_date {
          float: right;
      }
  45. Love this plugin! Is there a way to make it a dropdown- so it could list each year, and clicking on a year would show the post titles? Or possibly a Year>Month>Title hierarchy? I’ve been trying so many different ways to accomplish this and so far nothing is working, but your plugin comes close!

    • Hey Cory, if I understand correctly enabling “Collapsible years?” in the plugin’s settings should do the trick.

  46. Hi,
    How would I change the size of years headlines as in the demo?
    I used the the shortcode. and used before and after years headlines however this changed the size of everything.

    • Hi, what did you add to before and after years headlines? Depending on that you can change the style with CSS in your theme’s style.css file.

  47. Is there an option to change the navigation to previous / next instead of the post title? Is it possible to replace the previous / next with images? Thanks

    • Hey Patricia, I’m not sure I understand what you mean. Can you please explain a little more? Thank you!

  48. Hello Oliver, I selected your plugin from the Plugin Library, clicked Install and then Activate. I have an Archives Page but nothing shows up there. Obviously I’ve missed a step. Would you be able please to help me get this to function? I didn’t add any code anywhere on my site as that terrifies me😬. Also, I don’t use a Sidebar on any page which is why I’d just like a stand alone Archives page. Is that possible with your plugin? I just want a reader to be able to search by year and month.
    Thank You!

  49. Thanks for the fantastic tool! Is there a reasonable way to adopt this plugin to filter by taxonomy rather than category or post type?

  50. Hello, now I have a centered list. I wish the article list was to the right or justify. How to do it? I will add that editing the style on this page does not work for this. It cannot be formatted.

  51. Hi, is there a way to automatically generate excerpts and use your SimpleYearlyArchive too? It works great if I’ve written a manual excerpt on a specific post (and your plugin shows it nicely), but I have hundreds of posts and can’t seem to figure out how to use the native get_the_excerpt() function with your plugin. Thank you!

    • Hi jason, thanks for the heads-up! I just released a new update improving the excerpt generation.

      • Thank you! Unfortunately, I applied the update and it grabs an excerpt of the Archive page’s text, repeating it for each post title. The plugin DOES correctly show the manual excerpts from the posts that have them though. Do I need to call get_the_excerpt() or echo or trim in a “loop”? (whatever that is). If you want more info I can send it privately. Thank you!

        • Hi jason, hmm weird. Works for me on my archives page: https://www.schloebe.de/archiv/
          May be a theme-related issue. Could you please check if the issue persists when you have another theme active (the WordPress Twenty-Twentyone theme maybe) active? Thanks!

          • Hi Oliver, yes your suggestion of using the Twenty Twenty-One theme worked. Unfortunately it doesn’t seem to quite work right on my theme though, (IceableThemes.com’s Blackoot Pro). The fix is beyond me. Is this where I offer you beverages and access to look at it, or should I reach out to Iceable Themes to see if they can help me incorporate your plugin? Thank you!

              • Hi Oliver, wow I didn’t even know you could do that. Unfortunately, there’s no change. I was careful to 1) disable the plugin, 2) paste your contents exactly, fully overwriting the old simple-yearly-archive.php code, 3) reactivate it. I’ve added a few more manual excerpts (which is just me copying the first few lines of a post) and those work great with your plugin. Any other suggestions? Thank you so much for helping!

                • Hi Jason, would you be willing to send me your FTP credentials so I can have a look and work on the plugin on your server? I am aware it’s kinda weird giving away credentials to a stranger on the internet but it’d help me a lot in debugging.
                  If you’re okay with it, please send the credentials to info (at) schloebe (dot) de
                  If you’re not, which is totally fine, we’ll find another way to find a solution. 🙂

  52. Hi Oliver,
    I do love your plugin, but is there a way to modify it to list posts by year, and then under that by month (with the day in front of the post title?) Like here: https://writealatte.org/archive/ (this layout is running on Genesis, but I have switched to a regular WP theme on another site of mine and don’t know how to convert the template to work with it). I absolutely LOVE the formatting though, so being able to set something similar up for a non-Genesis layout would be fantastic 🙂

    Right now, your plugin is *almost* there but it repeats the month before each post. So close to what I need, and I don’t mind going and poking around in the code, but I would prefer just a straight answer before I inevitably break things. 🙂

    Thanks!

  53. Hi. Please can you tell me if your plugin will work the the “Archived Post Status” Plugin. This plugin allows you to change the status form published to “Archived” onto posts. Or does you plugin only show those posts with Status “Published” – if so, is there a way to change this and include “Archived” status as well?

  54. Hello,
    Your plugin is great for its simplicity.
    I know, as it’s name says, it is a yearly archive plugin.
    I don’t know if it is difficult or not, but I would like just a simple line to separate one month from an other.
    Is this possible to achieve?
    Thanks in advance.

  55. Hi. I am using on my WP site two different menus – “main menu” and “secondary menu”. When I open some posts with Simply Yearly Archive, it opens default on the page (or template) with the “main menu”, but I need to use “secondary menu” on this archive page. How to change that? Is there any template page this archive uses and I change the hook there?

  56. Hello,
    very nice plugin, but I have an issue using the “exclude” and “include” options.
    [SimpleYearlyArchive exclude="6,5"]
    Shows also posts with category id 5 and 6 ( positive list with include didn’t work either).
    Any idea?

    Thanks
    Johannes

    • Hi Johannes, the “exclude” parameter only works for posts that have the excluded category exclusively assigned. So if posts do have more categories, it’s won’t be working.

  57. A wonderful plug-in Mr Oliver! thank you 🙂 I was trying to add a ‘title’ to the block with the short code. It works but is same size as my h7 tags I’ve used. Do I have to go into my themes.php page to get this title to match same font and size of other blocks?

    • Hi Gin, should be possible with CSS in your theme’s style.css. Can you link the page so I can have a look at it? Thank you!

  58. Hi Oliver, thank you for the plugin, it worked exactly for my requirement. I am trying to have 2 archive lists in the sidebar one with everything and the other with a specific set (basically trying to exclude using category IDs). But I am unable to exclude the category IDs. Would be able to help?

    • Well, the issue here could be that the category exclude parameter only excludes posts that are in that category exclusively.

  59. Hello,
    I have put shortcode from plugin on page , but I see archive on all pages. I want on just one. Is that possible?

    Regards

  60. This plugin seems quite close to what I have been looking for. Thank you.

    One thing I would like to be added is the ability to toggle on a leading zero for dates less than 10. That would allow all the posts within a month to line up.

    Currently:
    March 11 title
    March 10 title
    March 9 title
    March 8 title
    etc.

    I would prefer:
    March 11 title
    March 10 title
    March 09 title
    March 08 title
    etc.

    Another solution would be to permit the following option:
    yy-mm-dd

    23-03-11 title
    23-03-10 title
    23-03-09 title
    23-03-08 title
    etc.

    • Hi Bob,
      in order to get “March 09 title” try using “F d” as date format on the plugin’s settings page.
      “23-03-11” would be “y-m-d”.

  61. Hi!
    Is there an option to change the NEXT and PREVIOUS buttons so they navigate inside through the selected ID posts instead of all the posts. Also, if possible, when the year link is clicked it resets so all categories is displayed instead of the ones that was before.

  62. Hello,

    is there the possibility to only print a list of all articles without the years seperators without changing the global parameters?

    • Hi David, you can do that via CSS but as the plugin name implies it’s a yearly archive. 🙂
      You might want to try out other archives plugins.

  63. Hi, I would like the output to always be a dropdown menu instead of a list. What code changes need to be made?

    It is the only missing feature of your very appreciated plugin!

    • Hi, different output formats are not a plugin feature but if you are familiar with javascript you could try transforming the lists into dropdowns.

  64. Hi Oliver, I just came across your plugin. Nice work and I see lots of people are using it!

    My question is this. Can I get the plugin to display output like this:

    Articles by Month
    2024: J F M A M J J A S O N D
    2023: J F M A M J J A S O N D
    and so on

    Each month letter would be a link but not a link if no posts are published in a particular month). Clicking a month would take you to a standard archive page.

    Possible?

    • Hey @neville, as the plugin name implies it only lists the posts by year hence there’s no such option, sorry.

      Maybe give the “Compact Archives” plugin a try?

  65. Is there a way for me to exclude a specific category from showing? I tried excluding the category ID, tag ID, and the individual post ID and it still shows.

    Or, can I exclude by post type private?

    Thank you! 🙂

  66. Kostas MichalarosMarch 15, 2024 at 2:09 pm

    Hi there. First of all… THANK YOU for this plugin… very nice work… My question is…
    Is ti possible to only show years and link to them? Without the open/close list… i only want years and when i click a year to go to this year.
    Thanks

    • Hi Kostas, sure, just enable “Linked years?” in the plugin options and add the following CSS snippet at the end of your theme’s style.css file:

      .sya_container ul { display: none; }

  67. Hallo, ich versuche seit Tagen eine Lösung zu finden. Hoffe, es ist ok, wenn ich es hier frage.

    Ich würde gerne in meinem Blog Beiträge von heute vor einem Jahr, heute vor zwei Jahren, heute vor drei Jahren und so weiter anzeigen.

    Beispiel:
    25.03.2023 – Tomaten gepflügt
    25.03.2022 – Angekommen
    25.03.2022 – Figur gestrichen
    25.03.2021 – Blub

    Aber ich bekomme das leider mit der Anleitung nicht hin. Wie würde dafür der Code lauten?

    Ganz lieben Dank vorab für eure Hilfe

    Gruß Heiko

  68. I’m almost there in getting the plugin to do what I want. Go here: https://www.bassettbranches.org/newsblog/ and click on Blog Archives.

    Y F j is what I have for the date format in the options.
    I don’t want the month to show as a number, and want the 3 digit abbreviation, not all spelled out. I tried Y f j but that doesn’t work. How do I abbreviate the month?

    I’ve only used the shortcode [SimpleYearlyArchive].

    The other issue is how do I eliminate duplicating the information on the right? It should end at Admin Log Out.

    • Hi Kathryn, as for the date, try M j

      As for the duplicate information in your sidebar, take a look at Appearance > Widgets and remove the Archives widget.

      Have a great weekend!

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