WordPress Plugin – My Link Order

My Link Order allows you to set the order in which links and link categories will appear on your WordPress site. Uses a drag and drop interface for ordering. Adds a widget with additional options for easy installation on widgetized themes.

7/2/11: WP 3.1.4 broke the plugin. The newest version of the plugin (3.1.4) fixes this, but might require changes on your end. If you use widgets then you are good to go. If you use wp_list_bookmarks in your template, then just change that to mylinkorder_list_bookmarks(). It does the exact same thing, but allows the custom ordering.

Download here: My Link Order – WordPress.org Plugin Directory

Want to make a donation?

Installation Help (thanks to Ken down in the comments)

Step One: Go to “Widgets” under the “Appearance” tab. Drag the “Links” widget off the sidebar in order to deactivate it. Then, drag the “My Link Order” widget where you want your links to appear.

Step Two: Click on “My Link Order” to get to the settings. Be sure to set “Category Order By:” and “Link Order By:” to “My Order.” This is what allows you to set your links in whatever order you want the widget to display them in.

Step Three: Click on “My Link Order” under the “Links” tab. In the lower section are your link categories, in boxes. Drag and drop these to order your categories, and then click on the button “Click to Order Categories.” Now your categories will be in the order you want them.

Step Four: in the upper section, under “Order Link” click on the drop-down menu in order to select which category you want to order first. Then click on “Order Links in this Category.” Your links will then appear in little boxes and the widget will say “Order the links by dragging and dropping them into the desired order.” Do so. Then click the button below that says “Click to Order Links.” The links in that category will now be in the order you select. Click on the “Go Back” link to order the links in your other categories the same way.  (You need to do this for each category, unless you have a category you don’t care about the order of.)

Plugin Info

My Link Order was released in 2006 and has been compatible with every version of WordPress from 1.5 to 2.8.5. It went through a lot of changes, but the effort needed to keep it backwards compatible was quite burdensome. Breaking support for versions of WP older than 2.8 allowed for the inclusion of a more powerful widget and the removal of the horrible taxonomy.php patch (believe me I hated it more than anyone).

The most exciting change comes with the move to the new Widget API. It makes adding support for multiple widget instances a snap. Rewriting the widget code also allowed me to add widget options for nearly every single parameter normally available to the wp_list_bookmarks template function. If you were being held back by the lack of options on the built in Links widget then definitely check that out.

If you’d like to say thank you or make a donation please visit my Gifts and Donations page.

All of the old comments were moved to this page: My Link Order – Archived

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158 Replies to “WordPress Plugin – My Link Order”

  2. Am I right in assuming that, while this plugin is great at ordering the links in a sidebar widget, it won’t order links that are in the main nav menu at the top of the page??

  3. Sounds like a great plugin. When I try activating I get the following,

    Fatal error: Class mylinkorder_widget: Cannot inherit from undefined class wp_widget in ../wordpress/wp-content/plugins/my-link-order/mylinkorder.php on line 252

    Am I supposed to add something in a css file? What is the solution for this?

    Thanks

  4. Hey!

    First of all, thank you for this plugin.

    I’m translating My Link Order to brazilian portuguese. If you could email me (or tell me your address) I’ll happily send you the files. :)

    Thanks again,
    Eduardo

  6. Hi, I really like the plugin and the flexibility it gives me for displaying my blogroll.

    I’ve run into one small issue. Web site optimization speed testers are saying that the sidebar links images are missing height and width attributes.

    Is there an obvious solution for this I’m just not seeing? I couldn’t figure out a way to put the attributes in using the new WP 2.9 media interface. I don’t know if it’s the plugin/widget causing the image height & width attributes to not appear, or if it’s the 2.9 media UI, or something else.

    Any help/advice will be greatly appreciated. Thanks again for the plugin.

    Derek

  7. Thank you for your service!
    Is My Link Order set up to run on WP 2.9.1? I’ve installed it, and think I have it set up coreectly, but it does not show up on my site.
    Regards,
    Matt

  8. Hi

    Like the idea of the plug in to change the order of my links in my side widget. I have wordpress 2.9.1. and can’t get it to work so have had to revert back to the default Link widget.

    Any news on any updates to get it working would be appreciated.

    Thanks
    Jenny

  11. Any progress on the Widget Checkboxes now holding their checks? Is there somewhere in the code that I can “force” show link images on?

  12. Well – I found one piece of user error I can see the images now that I have the paths set correctly. But I show the images and the names and I would prefer to see just the images – no names.

  13. Wow, I feel so stupid. I was seeing the image in the standard “Link Widget” but in the My Link Order Widget I cannot see images and everytime I try and check show images it breaks. I was able to force the images to show by changing line 273 to read

    $show_images = empty( $instance[‘show_images’] ) ? ‘1’ : $instance[‘show_images’];

    (Changed the 0 to 1)

  14. Hi,
    Just installed My Link Order on Wp 2.9.1 and it shows up fine but doesn’t seem to work on site. You can move the links order within the admin area but it does not action on the site…

    I see others are having this issue. Is there a solution for this on the horizon…as it would be a pretty nifty app if I could get it working!

    Cheers
    A:-)

  15. I’ll donate $20 is this problem can be solved. In the admin area the plugin works fine, but the changes are not showing up on the website. Right now my most unwanted category is stuck at the top.

  16. I received a fast reply to my querry. The problem can be solved by removing the WordPress Default “My Links” on the widgets page, and replacing it with the “My Link Order” widget in its place, on the side bar options page. Thats it, and it works fine. All link categories can now be moved with ease.This is one Kooooooooooooool widget.

  20. Having a problem with the “exclude” category feature. When the field says “category ID”, what does that mean? Is that the “name”? Or is there some hidden ID I don’t know about? Thanks much!

  21. Is there a feature by where I can list my “LINKS” list by Category. Displaying LINKS grouped by category?

    I am new to WordPress and am in the process of building my site.

    Thanks.

  22. Thanks, works well. Just one ? – despite having the category The lemon House above blogroll when I am Managing Link Order, on the site they are the other way around, how do I fix?

    thanks Peter

  23. I believe your plugin is great & would like to make a donation soon as I am able to get it to work on my website. Want to use mylinkorder plugin as multiple, & not replace the default. Have activated the plugin but widget does not show on website sidebar. Do I have to edit mylinkorder.php to use as multiple widgets. Using wp 2.8.3 & atahualpa 3.4.1 Thanks.

    Rudy

  24. I am unable to get the links ordered correctly and it keeps reverting back to alphabetically sorting them. I removed the defauly “My Links:” category and created a new one “My Link Order:” as stated in above comment#16. Still not sorting them for me :/ any ideas on how to solve this?

  25. Thanks for the quick email back, turns out i was using widgets and i removed the old “Links:” widget and replaced it with the “My Link Order:” widget and it all works now. FYI if you go to plugins and click edit on My Link Order you can see a README instructions on it also.

  26. I’ve been trying to get this work for hours now. Is there an instruction manual anywhere? The widget is not displaying. Yes, I removed the old links widget.

  27. ??????? ???. ??? ???? ??? ???????? ????? ????? ???????? ? ?????????????? ?????, ????????? ? ?????????????? ??????????? ? ???????. :)

  28. Love the Widget, works great ot out test site.

    Had a question though, is there a way we can remove the title for the link category from showing on the page?

    Thanks

    James

  32. Hi,

    Thank you for your wonderful plugin. I was wondering if you could help me with a problem I have.

    The theme I use (Suffusion) has an option for activating an additional navigation bar on top of the header. When this is activated, I get the following error message:
    “WordPress database error: [Unknown column ‘link_order’ in ‘order clause’]
    SELECT * FROM wp_links WHERE 1=1 AND link_visible = ‘Y’ ORDER BY link_order ASC”

    This message disappears when I deactivate the My Link Order plugin. Any thoughts on how to fix this?

    Cheers,
    Achintya

  34. Awesome link thanks very much! Very refreshing to find a plugin that simply just works without any messing around. Especially like the new customisable widget.

  35. I had the hardest time getting this to order my links the way I wanted it to. You must first go the the Widgets tab (where you can change the order of your widgets), click on the “My Link Order” widget and change “Category Order By” and “Links Order By” to “My Order” in both of the drop-down boxes. Then you can choose the order of both categories and the links within those categories from “My Link Order” under the “Links” tab.
    In other words, what is set in the “Widgets” tab overrides whatever order you have set in the “My Link Order” tab.
    Oh yes, and be sure to de-activate the “My Links” widget by moving it off the sidebar. Hope this helps.

  36. I just installed for the first time on wp 3.0.1. I use widgets and thought I should drag the links widget off the sidebar and the My Link Order widget on instead. But nothing I configured would make the links show up at all. Finally I dragged Links back on the sidebar, expecting to see it ordered wrong or maybe duplicated, once ordered and once not.

    But now it appears to be working perfectly. Is this by design or is this a quirk of using a plugin that is not yet updated for 3.0.1?

    Again: I have both Links and My Link Order dragged to the sidebar on the widgets config page, and that seems to work properly, ordering according to My Link Order. Not what I expected, but I’m glad it seems to work.

  37. Darn, I was confused. It actually isn’t working at all. The WP Link widget ignores My Link Order (which makes sense) and My Link Order has no effect on the sidebar. The links don’t show up at all, much less in the correct order. I followed the detailed instructions here to no avail: http://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-my-link-order-no-effect-in-wp-3?replies=5

    Does it work properly for anyone on 3.0.1? It is supposed to be just My Link Order in the sidebar on the widget page, right? It is supposed to replace the normal WP Links widget, not modify it?

  38. @Marla,

    I know the instructions are not quite clear. But trust me, this does work in 3.01.

    Step One: Go to “Widgets” under the “Appearance” tab. Drag the “Links” widget off the sidebar in order to deactivate it. Then, drag the “My Link Order” widget where you want your links to appear.

    Step Two: Click on “My Link Order” to get to the settings. Be sure to set “Category Order By:” and “Link Order By:” to “My Order.” This is what allows you to set your links in whatever order you want the widget to display them in.

    Step Three: Click on “My Link Order” under the “Links” tab. In the lower section are your link categories, in boxes. Drag and drop these to order your categories, and then click on the button “Click to Order Categories.” Now your categories will be in the order you want them.

    Step Four: in the upper section, under “Order Link” click on the drop-down menu in order to select which category you want to order first. Then click on “Order Links in this Category.” Your links will then appear in little boxes and the widget will say “Order the links by dragging and dropping them into the desired order.” Do so. Then click the button below that says “Click to Order Links.” The links in that category will now be in the order you select. Click on the “Go Back” link to order the links in your other categories the same way. (You need to do this for each category, unless you have a category you don’t care about the order of.)

    I guarantee that this does work. Do not use the regular “Links” widget — be sure it is deactivated. The step that most people seem to miss is step two. Without setting the widget to display in “My Order,” it will display them according to one of the other methods you see there (I forget which is the default).

    Check out my blog. I use WP 3.01 and all the links, as well as the categories, appear in the order I want. (But seriously, it took me forever to figure out step two.) If you have more questions or need more help, feel free to drop me a message from my “Contact” link at the top. Best of luck.

  40. @Ken,

    You are so correct, thank you! I wonder what I did differently in the first place, because this seems like where I started, but something must have been wrong. Only difference I know of is that I had ratings on the links at first, but I cannot see how that would break it. I’m not going to test it further though, I’m happy it is working now.

    Marla

  41. I read your response of a few months back to someone who wanted to change the font on his my-link-order plugin categories. You advised:

    You’ll need to modify your theme’s CSS to change the size of the title.
    In style.css find this line in the Headers section:
    h2{font-size: 1.7em;}
    and add this directly below it:
    #sidebar h2{font-size: 1.3em;}
    Adjust that size up and down to your desired size.

    I tried to do the same thing for the sidebar p font size, but my CSS – oddly – does not have a p parameter as such; it merely sets “font” at the very top, then sets the h sizes in a normal fashion. I changed the p-font (the top font) from 12 to 13px, then tried to set the sidebar font back to 12 for the my-link-order plugin links (not categories, h2, which is fine) using
    #sidebar {font: normal 12px Arial, Helvetica;}
    (and also tried to do the same thing for the footer)
    but … it broke my site: white screen of death, which disappeared only when I restored the originally CSS style sheet.

    Was my mistake not specifying p in the code? I did not because my theme does not.
    I was a bit nervous about trying it with p because the code above broke the site.

    I would appreciate any help.
    Thanks.

  42. I have no idea, how to install.

    I downloaded, got some files, namely my linkorder.php, but when I click on it, cryptic signs appear in the browser window or another of my program opens and nothing works.

    For my taste, there is some breach between “Download here” and “Step one”. How do I get My-Link-Order into the widget area????

    regards,
    Stefan

  46. The widget works, but shows immediately both two groups of links, or, in other words, two categories of links. So much their my site. How to make it so that it shows only one group / one category?

  47. I am trying to use a 2nd instance of the widget. If I either ‘Include’ or ‘Exclude’ any categories, the widget adds “Include link: 1”. I can delete it, or change it and as soon as I save, back comes Include Link 1. If I let it display every Category, they all display correctly. Any ideas what is happening?

    thanks,

    lin

  49. “My link order” seemed to me to be a great plugin – now I’ve managed to sort my links in the sidebar as I wanted to.
    But: All links created in the orginal link menu of WP backend have disappeared, so I can’t delete them or change the correspondingn link text.

    Any ideas?

    Regards,
    Hella

  50. 4. If you aren’t using widgets, modify the sidebar template to use the correct filter (additional parameter seperated by ampersands):
    `wp_list_bookmarks(‘orderby=order&category_orderby=order’);`

    This is in the read-me but not in the installation help!
    Thanks for great plug-in BTW

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