Pages by date

Welcome to WordPress! Thanks for your positive feedback and for the question.

MLA’s pagination controls are modeled after the equivalent WordPress features. Pagination is a very specific feature tied to the “posts_per_page” idea and supported by the SQL offset and limit database query arguments. The feature does not support dividing blog posts or gallery items by anything other than “posts_per_page”. I regret that there is no combination of shortcodes in the current MLA version that can accomplish your goal in the way you outlined. You could add something like a dropdown control to add a “year” argument or a date query fairly easily. You can see something similar in the navigation controls at the top of the Media/Assistant admin submenu table.

That said, you have proposed an interesting new idea. I assume you have used the [mla_gallery] shortcode to generate a gallery filtered by some sort of data selection parameters. Now, you want to further divide the gallery by the “year” portion of something like the upload date or a custom field containing a date value; is that right? I would be happy to investigate the feasibility of creating some sort of controls that look like pagination but function in the way you describe.

I will leave this topic unresolved until I hear back from you. Any additional details you can provide will help me give you more specific guidance. Thanks for your interest in the plugin.

Hi David,
Thanks for getting back to me quickly and for the comprehensive response.

You’re spot on with the requirement. We have a number of documents (and other media) which ideally would be segmented automatically by date (eg – 2020 updates; 2019 match reports) etc so users could easily just page to the year they want.
You are correct in that I could (once I’ve read how to do it properly (!) use a drop down with year as the query parameter and I’ll probably initially do that whilst you look at whether the “page by date” is something that could be implemented.
The type of page (still being tidied up and worked on) I’m looking to show ‘page by year’ is https://hertsrugby.co.uk/community-game-updates/

ps. I’ve only recently taken over the website so there’s tons of redesign/rework I’m planning!

Hi both,

Your debate sparked my interest as I’m the ‘owner’ of a web site that uses MLA to categorise and tag photos taken of an annual fair – https://cuckoofair.co.uk/new-gallery

We have categories eg ‘performer’, ‘location’ that run across each year eg stalls, maypole, downton band and then the date of each fair which’ll display all photos of that year. At one stage it did have dropdowns but I went for a cloud approach as its’ easier for the viewers to see the options.

Currently thanks to MLA’s excellent EXIF rules processing the categories are set from EXIF fields, the year is extracted from DateOriginalTaken and stored as a tag. I also construct the photo title using a combination of ‘performer’, ‘location’ and year data.

Given the large number of photos I was uploading I use some tools (as a bare minimum the File Properties works!) on the PC to set the EXIF values – I update Copyright, Date Taken, Authors and Tags.

I’m happy to share what I’ve learnt especially around the tortuous path from File Property on a Windows desktop to a filed in WordPress.

I’m also interested in how this develops.

Paul

Thanks for both of you for expressing interest in a new MLA feature candidate. I have been thinking over possible approaches and outline design ideas.

If you want to help me refine the specifications and designs, contact me at my web site and we can continue the dialog by email, which will be much more efficient.

@cirks , @cuckoofairweb –

I have been making slow progress on a new [muie_archive_list] shortcode, which I am adding to the “MLA UI Elements Example” plugin. I have uploaded a new MLA Development Version dated 20210616 that contains v1.14 of the example plugin.

This new version has a Settings/MLA UI Elements Documentation tab that explains the new shortcode in detail (although the material is incomplete). The current version of the shortcode implements the dropdown, flat, list and array output formats. I am beginning work on the next_archive, current_archive, previous_archive and paginate_archive formats now.

You can find step-by-step instructions for using the Development Version in this support topic:

PHP Warning on media upload with Polylang

Once the Development Version is installed you must update (or install and activate) the example plugin. Navigate to the Settings/Media library Assistant Documentation tab and click the “Example Plugins” button. Type “elements” in the text box and click “Search Plugins” to filter the table.

You are looking for the “MLA UI Elements Example” plugin. Find that plugin and hover over the title in the left-most column. Click the “Install” rollover action, then go to the WordPress Plugins/Installed Plugins submenu and activate the example plugin as you would any other plugin. Make sure you have the latest version, 1.14, installed.

It would be great if you could install the Development Version, install/update the example plugin and let me know if it works for you. Thanks again for inspiring this new MLA feature.

I have uploaded a new MLA Development Version dated 20210616 that contains v1.15 of the “MLA UI Elements Example” plugin. This version implements the next_archive, current_archive, previous_archive and paginate_archive formats that were inspired by this support topic. I will continue working to complete the Documentation tab for the plugin.

I have released MLA version 2.96, which contains the updated MLA UI Elements Example plugin and the new [muie_archive_list] shortcode. I am marking this topic resolved, but please update it if you have trouble with the new version. Thanks again for inspiring this MLA improvement.