Current Plugin Version:

2.1.7
For WordPress version 2.8

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Organize Series LogoThe Organize Series plugin helps with the organization and presentation of articles/posts you write as part of a series. It helps make it easier for readers of your blog to discover all the series you’ve written and also to easily find post that are part of the same series.

Organize Series actually adds a new taxonomy to the WordPress taxonomy structure so your blog would have “categories”, “tags”, and “series” as the taxonomy types.

NOTE: Organize Series 2.1 will only work for WordPress 2.8 and higher.  I am no longer supporting earlier versions of Organize Series but if you need to use an earlier version you can download Organize Series 2.0.8 here. If you are upgrading from earlier versions of Organize Series make sure you read the  upgrade section. The following instructions are for fresh installs of Organize Series.

  1. MAKE SURE YOU BACKUP YOUR WORDPRESS DATABASE (that’s all in caps for a reason – nothing should go wrong but it’s a good precaution nevertheless!!)
  2. Download the File (or use the built-in updater provided by WordPress)
  3. Extract to a folder in ../wp-content/plugins/. The orgSeries folder can be named whatever you want but the default is “organize-series”. The final structure would be something like this:../wp-content/plugins/organize-series/--and all the orgSeries plugin files/folders--
  4. Activate orgSeries on your WordPress plugins page.
  5. *NEW with Organize Series 2.1* -> the Series Icon Feature uses the built in Media Uploader/picker in WordPress.  You don’t have to worry about what directory you upload your series icons into anymore.
  6. Visit the “Options/Settings->Series Options” page to initialize all the default settings.
  7. NEW with Organize Series 2.1.5 -> there is now a bundled plugin called “Organize Series Publisher” that allows you to hold a series of posts for publishing at a future date and then publish them all at once when ready. If you wish to use this plugin it must be activated after Organize Series is activated (more on this feature in the other notes section)

That’s it! You might want to read through the Series Options page  and the Manage->Series Page. You’ll also notice that your “write/edit” posts page now has a handy dandy series box on it for adding your posts to a series (and creating new series on the fly).

For support please visit the support forums.

Upgrading

If you are upgrading from Organize Series 2.0 or above you can follow the same steps as above however **make sure you revisit the Organize Series Settings** page.  There are some new fields that you’ll need to populate.  There are two ways of going about doing this:
*Fill in or modify the blank fields on the options page*
Specifically:
+  Display series navigation links checkbox -> make sure this is checked if you want your navigation links to be automatically inserted.
+  Delete all organize series datat from database… checkbox -> You can leave it unchecked UNLESS you want to have everything in your database that is organize series related removed when you delete the organize series plugin.
+  Series Meta (with excerpts) textarea -> You can now control what gets displayed with post-excerpts ( the_excerpt() ).  You can add exactly what is in the “Series Meta” textarea or modify to suit.
+  Latest Series (tags before), (inner tags), and (tags after) textareas. -> Latest Series used to have just one template but I’ve brokent it out into three separate areas so you can have more control over what the Latest Series widget (or template tag) displays.
*Click the “Reset Options to Default” button*
This will populate all the fields with the default settings.
**IMPORTANT** This will also replace any customizations you have already set – so if you choose this option make sure you copy your custom settings FIRST so you can reapply them after.

If you are upgrading from Organize Series 2.0 or above you can follow the same steps as above however make sure you revisit the Organize Series Settings page.  There are some new fields that you’ll need to populate.  There are two ways of going about doing this:

Fill in or modify the blank fields on the options page

Specifically:

  • Display series navigation links checkbox -> make sure this is checked if you want your navigation links to be automatically inserted.
  • Delete all organize series datat from database… checkbox -> You can leave it unchecked UNLESS you want to have everything in your database that is organize series related removed when you delete the organize series plugin.
  • Series Meta (with excerpts) textarea -> You can now control what gets displayed with post-excerpts ( the_excerpt() ).  You can add exactly what is in the “Series Meta” textarea or modify to suit.
  • Latest Series (tags before), (inner tags), and (tags after) textareas. -> Latest Series used to have just one template but I’ve brokent it out into three separate areas so you can have more control over what the Latest Series widget (or template tag) displays.

Click the “Reset Options to Default” button

This will populate all the fields with the default settings.

IMPORTANT : This will also replace any customizations you have already set – so if you choose this option make sure you copy your custom settings FIRST so you can reapply them after.

For support please visit the support forums.

Features

The following is a brief overview of all the features in Organize Series. For more indepth coverage of the features of Organize Series you can follow the Organize Series Usage Tips Series on my blog. Better yet, why not suscribe to the usage feed?

NEWEST FEATURE: Organize Series Publisher Plugin

Organize Series now comes bundled with a plugin that is the result of some custom work I did for Amanda Giles who graciously agreed to make this available to all Organize Series users. The Organize Series Publisher plug-in allows you to quickly publish all posts linked to a Series. It is dependent on having the Organize Series plug-in installed and activated. The Publisher plug-in works by adding a Status to each Series. If the status for a Series is “Unpublished”, all posts tied to that Series can be individually published, but those posted will be “held” until the Series itself is published. Once the Series is “Published”, all previously published posts in that series will be immediately published and visible on your site. Any posts in a Series still in the Draft status will be left as such and will not be published (until individually published). If you have a large number of articles, this saves time and provides a clean “publish” with no accidental broken links from unpublished posts.

Using the Plug-In for the First Time

Be sure the Organize Series plug-in is activated first, then activate the Organize Series Publisher plug-in. If you have any Series already created, they will default to the “Ignored” state which is means all posts are left in their current post status (Draft, Published). If you want to remove all posts in a Series from your site, you can “Unpublish” the Series through the Settings > Publish Series. Likewise, if you want them to reappear on your site, you can “Publish” the series from the same screen.

Creating a Series for Later Publishing

With this plug-in activated, you will have an additional check box to allow creation of a Series in an “Unpublished” state. This will allow you to create posts tied to Series without the posts actually being published to your site yet. See below.

Creating a new Series

  • Go to Posts > Manage Series
  • Begin typing on left side to create a new series
  • Decide whether the Series should be “Unpublished” (defaults to Unpublished)
  • Click Add Series to create the Series

Note: If you create a Series on the fly via the Add New or Edit Posts screen, you will not have the option of creating an “Unpublished” series. This means your posts will appear on your website as soon as they are individually published – unless you “Unpublish” Your Series immediately (see below).

Publish/Unpublish a Series

A Series, unless specified as “Unpublished” starts in an “Ignored” state. This is essentially the same as “Published” as posts which are published will appear on your site normally (if the posts have been individually published). You can change the status of a Series by going to the Posts menu and selecting Publish Series. On this screen you will see all Series listed and you have the ability to Publish or Unpublish an issue by clicking on the text link to the right of the Series name.

When you “Publish” a Series, only posts already marked for publishing are now actually published and visible on the site; posts in draft status will stay as [unpublished] drafts although they still can be published at a later time. If you wish to Publish, there is an additional step. Clicking Publish will take you to the Publish Series screen which will allow you a chance to reorder the posts. Reordering posts sets the series_part custom field value which is used for sorting within some Organize Series template tags. You must then click “Publish Issue” on the right side of the screen to complete the process. Once you do this all posts in the Series will be published no matter what their previous status (draft, pending review, or published).

Integration with WordPress taxonomy system

Introducing the "series" taxonomy - see how Organize Series integrates with the "Right Now" dashboard widget.

Beginning with version 2.3, WordPress introduced a database and core change that resulted in a new taxomony system. The core WordPress has two taxonomies – “categories” and “tags”. Organize Series introduces a new taxomony “series”. Thanks to the rich api provided to plugin authors Organize Series takes advantage of (as much as possible) the built-in WP goodness! As an added bonus – plugin developers can expand on what Organize Series offers by interacting with the new series taxonomy and the built-in filters/hooks.

More “organize” for taking care of your series…

Check these additions to your WordPress administration:

Manage->Series Page A “Manage Series” page. Add, delete, edit all your series on one handy dandy page. Functioning much like the “Manage Category” page, Organize Series makes it easy to keep track of all the series you are writing.
Series Column on Manage->Posts page (WP2.5) Integration with the Manage->Posts page. Now it’s easier than ever to keep track of what posts have been added to series in a familiar setting. Even better, you can also filter the post list by series (and in combination with other filters in WP 2.5) giving you a quick way to see all the posts you’ve already added to the series.
Makes editing series information for already published posts quick and easy! Organize Series also fully integrates with the quick-edit feature of WordPress!

Filtering the list of post by series…

Series Filter (WP 2.5)

Add “prettify” recognition to your series…

You can easily upload and choose images to use as series “icons” for your series via the built-in WordPress Media-Uploader.

Picking images for your series has never been easier!

Integration with Write/Edit posts page

Assigning Posts to series a piece of cake!

Organize Series brings a new “box” to your write/edit posts page for series related tasks:

  • Add new series on the fly. Ajaxified and simple to use (works pretty much the same as adding new categories on the fly)
  • Add posts to existing series.
  • Choose what order you want that post to be in the series. If you leave the field blank, your post will automatically be appended to end of the series. But if you want you can number that post to be whatever part you want and every other post in the series will be automatically adjusted for their new parts Is that cool? Yeah, I thought so too!

Works out of the box.

Once you’ve activated the plugin (and are not importing from earlier versions) all you have to do is visit the Series Options page and then you’re ready to go (you don’t have to change/or add anything!). Out of the box, Organize Series defaults to automatically insert into your blog all the necessary “template tags” for displaying series related information.

Defaults from out of the box:

Series Meta with each post:

Default Series meta Strip

Series Table of Contents Page:

Default Series Table of Contents

Series info box on single post pages:

Default PostList Box

Series Navigation Strip:

Default series navigation strip

Use permalinks? No problem, Organize Series detects that and introduces a permalink structure for series archive pages (defaults to http://yourblogaddress.com/series/%theseriesslug%). Don’t like the default settings/look…well…

Complete options page for easy customization without having to edit any .php files

Nearly everything you might want to customize with Organize Series can be done on the Series->Options page:

  • Control placement of series related info (Series Meta, Series Table of Contents, Series Postlist boxes, Series Navigation Strip, etc.)
  • Customize the html output or series related info by using the %token% system with a token legend right on the page (check out the screenshots tab).
  • Control what the path of your “series table of contents” link will be.
  • Control how posts in a series will be displayed on series archive pages. The default is by date in descending order (newest to oldest) – but you can order it by part too.
  • Set the icon width for images associated with series for different pages.

An example of one of the edit template boxes on the Series Options Page:

Template Example from Series Options page

Legend for series tokens via the options pageA pic of the Token Legend (lists all the %tokens% you can use in the template)

Pretty cool eh? But maybe you’d like to be able to customize things even more?…

A whole bundle of template tags for theme authors and WP tweakers

Do you actually like going into the guts of your theme files? Then, you’ll love the “template tags” organize series makes available for you! Better yet, I’ve made it easy for you to find them: All the template tags you’ll ever need are found in the series-template-tags.php file in your Organize Series plugin directory. Each tag is also fully documented inline so you can have a better idea what it does!

You can also edit the default .css file for orgSeries OR point to your custom .css in styles.css for your theme.

Oh, if you implement Organize Series in a cool way let me know here

And one last thing I’ve just gotta mention…

Widgets!!

Organize series provides two widgets: A Series Widget which will list all the series on your blog and when on a single-post page that is part of a series you can also optionally list the other posts belonging to the series.  There is also a “Latest Series” widget that you can use to display a list of the latest series you’ve contributed to your blog.  Both widgets have numerous options you can modify to control what the widgets display.

Usage

There’s just so much to say about how you can use Organize Series that I’ve decided to write a series of posts dealing with using Organize Series. You can follow along with the series here or feast on the feed.

Don’t forget, if you have questions related to usage, I’m usually pretty good at responding to requests for help here.

Have fun – and get writing those series!!