[Grouped Links Widget, version 1.x for WP 2.7 and below is available here]
Grouped Links Widget can use an unlimited number of widget instances to group links by their associated link categories. This adds a bit more CMS functionality to WordPress.
If the blogroll is grouped into link categories and each category contains internal tag references, then you can flexibly group link categories and put these link groups into your sitebar(s). This, of course, works with traditional external links put in a blogroll too.
Here is a picture about how this works:
Using Grouped Links Widget (Note: the second group is reverse sorted)
Each group of link categories can be sorted by name acending or decending. If simple sorting doesn’t fit to your desired order to appear in the sidebar, then create more than one link group and place them in the sidebar as you wish.
Options
In order to adapt Grouped Links Widget to different HTML theme codes, HTML tags can be set for each link group and for each title within the link group. However, default values should work with most themes.
Update from 1.x
Please save your link groups on paper (or what else), because given configurations of link groups will not be taken over from version 1.x to version 2.x.
Coding
Grouped Links Widget is a simple widget, it mainly uses wp_list_bookmarks. Version 2.0 was completely refactored in order to adapt to the new WordPress 2.8 multi widget technique. If you want to add more functionality, don’t hesitate to modify the code 
Download
Download of Version 2.0.0: grouped-links-widget.2.0.0.zip
Installation
- Unzip grouped-links-widget.zip inside the /wp-content/plugins/ directory; a sub-directory grouped-links-widget is created
- Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress
- Place and configure your Grouped Links widgets via ‘Design / Widgets’ menu
Version History
[2.0.0] — Refactoring to adapt WP 2.8 multi widget functionality
[1.x] — see version 1.x
June 14, 2009 at 18:50
Works great, thank you..
July 6, 2009 at 16:52
Feines Plugin! Danke für die Arbeit!
Du hast es ja als Widget konzipiert. Ich würde gerne eine ganze Linkseite so gestalten. Kann ich da z. B. einen Code in ein Page-Template eintragen, so dass die Infos statt in einem Widget auf einer Page erscheinen?
Viele Grüße!
Herbert
July 6, 2009 at 17:18
Ja, das ist recht einfach (wenn du eh schon am Code bist): Du verwendest dafür pro Link-Gruppe die Funktion wp_list_bookmarks. Diese Lösung hat dann mit dem Grouped-Links-Widget allerdings nichts mehr zu tun, du musst also Änderungen stets am Code vornehmen.
September 7, 2009 at 11:18
Hallo,
dein Plugin macht der Beschreibung nach genau das,was ich suche. Leider nur bei mir nicht. Plugin aktiviert, Widget platziert – nada.
Haste du einen Tipp?
September 7, 2009 at 11:34
Hoppla, nun geht’s doch. Einmal das Theme gewechselt und wieder zurück, dann erscheint das Widget. Leider ist der Abstand zwischen dem Titel und dem ersten Eintrag riesig.
September 10, 2009 at 09:38
Abstände und so’n Kram bitte in deinem CSS einstellen. Wenn du dafür spezielle Auszeichnungen brauchst (Überschrift-Tags: manchmal hilft schon ein Wechsel von h3 nach h2 oder umgekehrt), kannst du die in den Optionen setzen.
September 15, 2009 at 18:40
Grouped Links in word press dynamic content updated need all Grouped link code in sidebar.php is it possible ?
September 15, 2009 at 19:21
I am not sure, that I understand what you want to do: You don’t need to put any code in sidebar.php directly, you only have to add grouped links widgets in your wordpress widget admin interface to the sidebar you wish. The presentation is done by wordpress automatically.
If you aim to put the grouped links widget code directly into the sidebar.php, then I have no idea how to do this. Anybody?
December 18, 2009 at 00:53
Hi
I installed the widget, and it works well. However all the other items in the sidebar disappear when I activate it.
Please can you tell me how I can resolve this problem? I had it in the left hand sidebar
Many Thanks
December 18, 2009 at 00:54
Please note that the url of the site that I want to use the widget on is http://ss-designs.co.uk/troyblog
December 18, 2009 at 11:50
I have now resolved the above problem. However, I now have my links showing in their categories, but I also have my original links listings showing up. Please can you advise how to get rid of the default links list so that only your categorized links show. My blog is listed above.
Many thanks
Sarah
December 26, 2009 at 18:15
Hi Sarah, sorry for my late reply, I was in holidays. I am not sure, that I understand your problem correctly, because my answer sounds too simple: If you want to get rid of the old links being displayed, then you have to remove the respective old links widget, because now the links are displayed by grouped links widget.
Please clarify if I didn’t get the point (e.g. which widgets you are using and what is displayed).
December 27, 2009 at 19:06
Hi
Thanks for you reply. I have now stopped using this widget as I could not see what to do. However I would still like to know as I have other sites that need to be created.
My original links were part of my blogroll and are added via the administration panal. It is there I allocated categories to them. Once I installed your widget, I had by blogroll links showing which were duplicated by your widget. I do not have another links widget installed and I believe the blogroll is part of the structure of a wordpress site.
I hope O have explained it a bit better now?
Many thanks
Sarah
December 28, 2009 at 12:04
The blogroll is nothing else than a link list having the category “Blogroll” (or “Linklist” in older WP-versions). Thus you can remove the blogroll-widget (named “Links”) and let the blogroll-links being displayed by grouped links widget.
The other option is, that you use the standard blogroll widget (“Links”) and check out the link category “Blogroll” in the grouped links widget.
Please make sure, that you have customized all sidebars, otherwise a default set of widgets will be displayed (e.g. including the blogroll in the left sidebar).
December 28, 2009 at 18:21
Thank you. Now I understand! I will definitely use the plugin on my next project!
February 8, 2010 at 11:34
Hi Stefan,
I’m getting the following error in the latest wordpress version:
Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /wp-content/plugins/grouped-links-widget/grouped-links-widget.php on line 41
Can you suggest what the problem might be?
February 8, 2010 at 11:51
Do you have link categories used by published and visible links?
At the given point where the error raises, all link categories are looped, but I did not check before, if there is any at all. However, I tested this with “no links” and “private links” etc. and everything works (no groups had been displayed as expected).
February 8, 2010 at 11:59
Ok, that seems to have resolved itself. Weird.
However I do have another question. Is there any way of adding a dynamic class to a surrounding div so that I can style the categories differently (add a category icon)?
Something like this is what I’m after:
Category1
Link Here
Another Link Here
Category2
Link Here
Another Link Here
February 8, 2010 at 12:04
crap. try again
div class = Category1
h4 Category1 /h4
ul
li Link 1 /li
li Link 2 /li
/ul
/div
div class = Category2
h4 Category2 /h4
ul
li Link 1 /li
li Link 2 /li
/ul
/div
February 8, 2010 at 12:13
(It’s WordPress which removes the tags in the simple commment fields).
Yes, using different classes for the displayed groups is a good idea. Will look after that, but I can not say, how long this will take.