Breukie’s Links Widget for Wordpress
As we all know that since wordpress version 2.1 the function wp_list_bookmarks is the one to use for things like random link order, exclude or include multiple categories with links.
I still miss the way I could setup and administer a link category in previous versions of wordpress a little bit (maybe mostly because I just love more options hahaha), but to be honest … with most blogs and sites you only set it up once and never change it. I never even used all sorting options, so a widget with 23 parameters of the wp_list_bookmarks function to choose and set, should do the trick 
Like my other widget (Breukie’s Pages Widget), it is a pretty simple widget, but hope it will do the trick for you too!
Description
Breukie’s Links Widget is a wordPress links widget, to replace the standard links widget by Automattic. This widget displays links using the wp_list_bookmarks function, utilizes most available parameters. You can also set up to 9 intances of this widget in your sidebar(s).
Requirements
Only for Wordpress 2.1 +
Support
Any questions like support, bug reports, feature requests or any of this kind for this widget, can be posted in my forum. To post a message there, log in with your account, or register first if you do not have one. Still … I am curious what you think of this widget, so feel free to comment 
Installing
- Unzip to wp-content/plugins/widgets.
- Go to WP admin -> plugins and activate Breukie’s Links Widget.
- Go to WP admin -> presentation -> sidebar widgets, to add the widget to your sidebar(s).
- Select how many Breukie’s Links Widgets you want to show and/or setup the parameters of the widget.
- If you are updating from an earlier version, deactivate, delete old version, upload new version and activate it.
Version History
Version 2.5
- Made wordpress 2.2 compatible.
Version 2.4
- Cleaned up and corrected Read-Me file.
Version 2.3
- Added Read-Me file.
- Fixed link description parameter.
Version 2.2
- Some small translations from dutch to english.
- Bug fix, category id.
Version 2.1
- Fixed 4 parameters, typo.
Version 2.0
- Finishing touches.
- Added 2 parameters.
Version 1.5
- Cleaned up code, mainly HTML output.
- Added 4 parameters.
- Deleted several parameters.
Version 1.0
- Bug fix.
- Cleaned up code
- Added most parameters.
Download
Breukie’s Links Widget v2.5 - downloaded 2695 times.
maart 27th, 2007 at 6:05 pm
too difficult to find plugin like this, increase the power of wordpress theme.
maart 27th, 2007 at 10:38 pm
But I presume you like and use my widget now
For the record, all my widgets and/or plugins are or will be listed at various sites and databases.
Including the plugin database of Wordpress, where I submitted my widgets, for them to check
HTH
april 12th, 2007 at 3:33 am
Hi Breukie,
Thank you so much for developing this widget. I really like it and I’m using it a lot in my sidebar at jessibird.net. There’s one thing that needs fixing, though, and I think it would be really easy for you to do!
Right now the widget creates one too many sets of li tags. In some themes it makes the spacing wrong between instances of the widget in the sidebar, so it doesn’t look so good.
Let me know if you need more details. I think you could just compare the html your widget generates to the html the standard links widget generates to understand what I mean. I would really appreciate it if you could fix it!
april 12th, 2007 at 7:48 pm
Hello Breukie,
I found a workaround for the “too many tags” issue, which I think is an issue with the wp_list_bookmarks tag and my theme, not with your plugin per se. I set the category_before and category_after to a space, to override the default tags. That worked for me.
Thanks again for a great plugin!
april 13th, 2007 at 2:47 am
Hi Jessi,
Always like to help, but yesterday was my birthday … actually almost 3 houres ago
I will look into this, coming sunday.
[EDIT @ 16-04-2007]
After a perfect birthday and birthday party, regrettably I had to do some unexpected work yesterday, wich became an alnighter.
So I have not looked at your problem yet
Thuesday or wednesday you can definatally find a full answere here.
[/EDIT]
april 19th, 2007 at 10:17 am
Hi,
there is a bug in recent version (2.2). \n characters are shown before link description (if enabled).
Cheers!
april 20th, 2007 at 12:38 am
Hi Jessi,
Have looked at it, but have not found any error yet.
I will double check it coming weekend when I have a little bit more time and going to do some work on my site anyway.
I could have made a mistake in zipping a wrong version, but even that looks ok.
Hi Mucho,
I will look into that too, that bug also does not happen when I use my widget … hmmm, strange, more after this weekend.
I do thank both of you for pointing any bugs out to me, so I’ll definatally keep you both posted
april 26th, 2007 at 5:17 am
Hi Breukie,
Sorry, it’s been a while since I checked your site. Please, don’t bother yourself to look into the issue I mentioned, unless you’re curious. I believe it really is nothing to do with your plugin. Instead, the problem is that the default options for wp_list_bookmarks don’t produce tags that fit well into a sidebar widget. If the category_before and category_after defaults were blank, that would be ideal. Instead, the defaults are and , and when those tags show up in a widget, besides being completely unnecessary, they create extra space between the widget-sections in your sidebar, at least they do in many themes, depending on the style sheet.
However, if you wanted to add this info to your plugin’s read me, I think that might be cool. Just that if you see wonky formatting, try setting those options to a space, and that will override the wp_list_bookmarks defaults.
Or I guess another approach would be for your widget to display the defaults within it, and if you make the field empty, that would make the option empty instead of the default.
I’ll leave the decisions to you - you’re the programmer!
Sorry to hear your birthday fun got cut short! Just remember, you can celebrate your birthday, or your unbirthday, as many times as you want, any day you want.
april 28th, 2007 at 12:45 pm
Hi Jessi,
No problem, always glad to help.
As a matter of fact I was and am still curious. I have allready checked all codes in my widget and did not find any mistake.
Even when I activate this parameter, it shows no errors.
At first glance it was verry strange that this error occours for you, simply because I have programmed it in a way that if you do not use a specific parameter, it will use the defaults that wordpress thought off!
After a little search I came to the same conclusion as you did.
This problem or error is not an error of my widget or my codes, but there are some known bugs in the wp_list_bookmarks function, that occours when used in some stylesheets. As you can read at several support topics at http://wordpress.org/tags/wp_list_bookmarks
Regrettably I cannot change this, wordpress has to do this!
When wordpress solve this problem you and everybody else can be rest assured that my widget will be too.
As you also found out, if you add a space in the category_before and after it will make the parameter empty and the problem solved.
Again I have to say, that if you not use this or other parameters it uses the defaults. In your case, try to put a < br > in the category before and after and see if it will still break your stylesheet. If it doesn’t you might have to look at your design instead of my widget
Please also download my widget again, not only because maybe you have an old version, but also because I am uploading a new version of this widget (see next post)
Thank you for pointing this out for me and for using my widget and hope to see you back to check my upcoming other widgets I am making
HTH
april 28th, 2007 at 1:08 pm
Hi muchio,
Thank you for pointing this out to me.
I changed my widget, the parameter “link description” will work again as it should.
Please download version 2.4 and reinstall my widget
HTH
april 29th, 2007 at 7:16 am
[...] Breukie’s Links Widget - ווידג’ט ×§×™×©×•×¨×™× ×”×ž×—×œ×™×£ ×ת ווידג’ט ×”×§×™×©×•×¨×™× ×”×¡×˜× ×“×¨×˜×™ של וורדפרס, × ×™×ª×Ÿ לייצר עד 9 ×ž×•×¤×¢×™× ×©×œ הווידג’ט. הווידג’ט מ×פשר שימוש ברוב ×”×פשרויות של ×”×¤×•× ×§×¦×™×” wp_list_bookmarks, בין הש×ר בחירת × ×•×©×, מיון, ופילטרי×. http:BL - תוסף המ×פשר לבדוק כתובות IP של ×”×ž×‘×§×¨×™× ×‘×‘×œ×•×’ מול מסד ×”× ×ª×•× ×™× ×©×œ פרוייקט “מלכודת הדבש”. בעזר×ת התוסף תוכל לר×ות ×× ×”×ž×‘×§×¨ ×”×•× ×¡×¤×מר, קוצר כתובות דוהל וכו’. בעזרת התוסף ×ž×‘×§×¨×™× ×—×•×¨×©×™ רעה ×œ× ×™×•×›×œ×• ×œ×”×™×›× ×¡ לבלוג שלך ×•×œ×’×¨×•× × ×–×§ לך ×ו לקור××™× ×©×œ×š. [...]
april 30th, 2007 at 1:02 pm
Breukie-
One thing that would be a tremendous help to me would be the ability for exapnd/collapse rss feeds associated with the blogroll. For example, if the blogroll could look like this:
+ Blog Roll 1
+ Blog Roll 2
+ Blog Roll 3
Clicking the “+” would expand to:
-Blog Roll 1
>>Blog Story 1
>>Blog Story 2
>>Blog Story 3
+Blog Roll 2
+Blog Roll 3
Just an idea to add - thanks for the widget.
mei 1st, 2007 at 12:18 am
Hi Taylor,
It is a nice idea, but is not the purpose of this widget and comes closer to a complete plugin. So I am not planning to add this to this widget.
At this time I am very busy and am allready developing a couple of other widgets.
Still … I very much like the idea and maybe build a plugin with these and more feaures.
Thank you for using my widget and your feature request.
mei 5th, 2007 at 6:23 pm
Hi Breukie,
I just downloaded the new version. Your widget is really a time-saver! Thanks again for everything. Your widgets are great and you are always so pleasant and kind. By the way I’ve recommended your widgets to anyone I think might appreciate them.
Best wishes, Jessi
mei 6th, 2007 at 4:15 am
Hi Jessi,
Really cool of you to say and do!
It’s always nice to know there are people that appreciate your work and even spread it around
FYI … Please come back in 2 or 3 weeks or so, I am planning to add a version check in all off my widgets
HTH
mei 12th, 2007 at 10:51 pm
Hi Arnold,
first of all thanks for Your plugin.
I installed it right today!
Unfortunately I got some problem…
1.Putting the widget in my second sidebar, the part of the sidebar after the widget moves to the third sidebar (in which there is only my logo. It’s not proper a sider) and… without formatting the sidebar (obviously)!
2. The second problem I got is related to the way to sort links in the widget.
Infact is not present in the options a sort by name for links but is present for categories.
I don’t know if I have been able to explain my problems.
I hope I can count on Your help.
Regards from Italy
mei 14th, 2007 at 2:32 am
Hi Davide,
First, please make sure you are using the latest version (2.4) of this widget, I updated my widget a couple of weeks ago.
1. It is not completely clear to me what you exactly mean by this, but … try formatting your sidebar with CSS
also you can use the parameters of my widget, category_before after and regular before and after with for instance a break or maybe a space, if you decide not to use CSS to format your sidebar, even though it would help a lot.
2. This option is available in my widget! Open the options for my widget in the sidebar arrangements screen in your dashboard. Look for “Category Order By” and set the selectbox to name or id and if you want the other one to ASC or DECS.
HTH
mei 14th, 2007 at 8:16 pm
Hi Arnold, the version is the last one.
I don’t know what to say… I have written down what happens when i configure your plugin. If You want to check by yourself maybe we can solve the problem. What do You think about?
mei 14th, 2007 at 8:55 pm
Hi Davide,
Part one, is using the latest version. So this one is ok.
You wrote “… without formatting …”
Part two is to format your sidebar, using CSS. Really, I am not kidding, that would solve your problem! You even only need to use the widget class or id that you can find in your stylesheet, even if you don’t use CSS for the rest of your website.
Still I strongly suggest using CSS, like wordpress (in folder /wp-content/themes/{your_theme}/style.css) uses by default anyway
There you can set all divs, classes, id’s, etc.
Otherwise place the widget where you want it and let me know, so I can see what happens.
Did you also found the “Category Order By” parameter in my widget configuration options?
HTH
mei 23rd, 2007 at 2:00 pm
Nice plugin! I’ve needed this. The only thing I would like is an option to put a tag after the last link (specifically I need a ). I was able to put the after the title. It looks fine but currently my XHTML is not valid.
mei 23rd, 2007 at 3:28 pm
Hi Misty,
Thanks for using and liking my widget.
Hoping that I understand you correctly, but your request is not possible because I decided not to add features (your request would be a new feature), but to use all available features the wp_list_bookmarks function allows.
You could set the $before_widget, $after_widget, $before_title and $after_title that are default for most widgets, but that would still be very difficult to get it like you want. Or use as you did the parameters title_before or title_after, maybe you can also try the following parameters: before, after, category_before, category_after or maybe even just title_li.
They might get you there, maybe even by using a combination.
If you have a little knowledge of php, you could also script a little function that adds a tag when a specific link is fetched out of the database.
As you see, this than comes more in the neighbourhod of a new plugin instead of a widget where you can set most parameters of the wp_list_bookmarks function
HTH
mei 27th, 2007 at 2:52 pm
Hallo Arnold,
Love the Widget. Having some problems.
When I enter an id or select a Single Categorie it still gives me all my links.
What am I doing wrong?
Using Wp2.2, 1.0.20060711 Sidebar Widgets by Automattic, Breukies Link 2.5 and disabled WordPress widgets plugin.
mei 29th, 2007 at 12:06 am
I just discovered your plug-in and it’s wonderful! I’ve been looking for these exact features ever since WordPress removed them somewhere around version 2.0-2.1 and this works great and is easy to use. Thanks so much!
juni 5th, 2007 at 1:21 pm
Hoi Arnold,
Love your plug-in.
But…. applying it on a site with the Mandigo Theme, it breaks the theme on MS Internet Explorer. It looks fine in FireFox (which I use), but MSIE users get all messed up pages.
I don’t know which of the two is causing the incompatibility.
I’m “talking” to the designer of the theme about this, too.
Hoop dat je een oplossing hebt.
Milly
juni 7th, 2007 at 6:41 pm
Hi Breukie,
Thank you for your plugins. I’ve been using breukie’s pages for some time and now I am trying breukie’s links.
I have a problem that’s driving me crazy with it: The plugin looks incredibly complete with the many options it has, but I cannot seem to undestand what they do!!!
I am just trying to show ONE category of links (I have 2: “blogroll” and “friends”), but I tried everything and cannot get anything else than the 2 categories in my sidebar…
Care to give me a hand? Thanks,
Diego
http://www.secretia.com
juni 18th, 2007 at 4:50 am
Hi - I’m new at this whole web design business, so please forgive me if this is a dumb question, but can you tell my why your widget looks great in Firefox but not IE? (Example at expatsinkorea.net.) I still can’t figure it out after much tinkering with various settings, but I have isolated that my coding problems relate to this widget.
Thanks for your time and for developing this!
Kristin
juni 18th, 2007 at 10:26 am
Hey Man, I left you a message 11 days ago… Do you think you could tell me how to fix your plugin?
Diego
http://www.drbolsa.com
juni 21st, 2007 at 3:34 pm
hi,
great plugin!
could it be that with wordpress 2.2.1 your plugin is not working anymore? it only shows the standard-plugin, but not my configured links widget.
MAX
juli 3rd, 2007 at 10:13 am
Hi,
Like everyone else, I really like you link widget. Unfortunately when I upgraded from WP 2.2 to WP 2.2.1 it stopped working. Now it just shows all of my links (about 600 of them) instead of just the ones I want.
Is there an easy fix for this?
Thank you,
John
juli 7th, 2007 at 11:49 am
Hi
that widget is just what I need, but I have trouble with it and Wordpress 2.2.1 . Is it compatible with that version ? I change options, but nothing changes on main page. Your widget works just like normal “Links” widget.
juli 10th, 2007 at 2:30 pm
I’m using this on WP 2.2.1 and seems to be fine… well done and thx, appreciate your efforts and sharing… highly recommended plugin/widget.
juli 23rd, 2007 at 1:25 am
Plugin won’t work with WP 2.2.1 anymore!
juli 24th, 2007 at 8:10 pm
[...] reminds me of Apple for some reason. Kudos to Brendan for this! Another useful plugin is the Breukie’s Link Widget which how I am managing to switch between a text link and image link for my blogroll so easily. [...]
juli 26th, 2007 at 6:37 am
Hello!
That’s the plugin I was looking for. However, one problem - when I change the title in the Widgets section, it still shows default Categories.. Do you know why it is so? I am running WP 2.2.1.
Thanks!
augustus 1st, 2007 at 12:37 pm
Hallo!
This widget does exactly what I want it to, but there is a slight issue with the formatting on my site, which I am happy to fix myself, but I need your help to know how!
At the moment, each seperate area in my sidebar consists of a tagged heading, and then a tagged list. This displays exactly how I want it to, and I LOVE it.
Areas generated by your widget work the same way, but add an extra tag surrounding each category/area, which (I think) is putting an odd indented space in the heading of each area.
Is there a way that I can go in and strip the bit of your widget that is generating that extra code? I am not smart enough to know how myself!
Thankyou for any help you can give!
augustus 1st, 2007 at 12:39 pm
(There are bits of coding in my last comment that are not appearing now… it should read “(div) tagged heading and then a (ul) tagged list” and then “… add an extra (li) tag…”. Hopefully, the brackets instead of the will fake out the comment form!)
augustus 5th, 2007 at 8:41 pm
Hello,
When I used this widget in my site, the layout after this widget was blown out. When I checked the generated code, I realized that elements are not surrounded by in tag. After I added require code, everything is rendered fine. Is this a bug?
Also I checked other scripts (pages, categories) and see that they have tags in rendering code, thus have no problem when rendering..
Raymex
augustus 22nd, 2007 at 12:41 am
Great Widget - thank you so much! One little thing: In the blogroll manager I put the rss url of the links - it would be very nice, if I coud show a little feed icon next to the links with this URL …!
augustus 25th, 2007 at 1:05 pm
I love your widget, but it installs a bullet before the title on my sidebar. How can I remove that?
augustus 29th, 2007 at 3:20 am
Will this plugin enable an option for my link descriptions in the sidebar to be displayed by mouseover activation? I do not want all of them displayed- just a box displaying description when the reader activates it with a mouse.
Thanks
september 6th, 2007 at 4:49 pm
Hi,
I’ve tried to use this widget but it’s not working at all for me with 2.3 beta2. (I haven’t tried with 2.2) When I activate it, it shows ALL links, irrespective of options. I’m trying to achieve this:
wp_list_bookmarks(’show_description=0&categorize=1&orderby=rand&category=20,21,18,22,19,17′);
Have you tried it with 2.3? how can I debug and see what final piece of code it produces?
oktober 3rd, 2007 at 10:04 pm
[...] fez a migração para o Wordpress 2.3 e usava o plugin Breukie’s Links deve ter ficado indignado ao ver que ele havia parado de funcionar. Na verdade ele não pifou [...]
december 26th, 2007 at 10:57 pm
Hello. This plugin sounds like what I’m looking for but I just wanted to ask if it will work for WordPress version 2.3.1? I have read above and I see in one place it says it’s for 2.1 only then 2.2 but has anyone tried it on 2.3.1 with success? And if not, will there be a version for 2.3.1?
Thanks for your help
Gemma
januari 2nd, 2008 at 2:42 am
[...] - to make it MUCH easier - you can use Breukies Links Widget by widget author Arnold Breukhoven - a WordPress links widget, to replace the standard links widget by Automattic. This widget [...]
januari 14th, 2008 at 4:12 pm
[...] 一个ä¸é”™çš„侧边æ 链接æ’件,调用方法:wp_list_bookmarks(); 作者: Arnold Breukhoven æ’ä»¶é¡µé¢ [...]
januari 22nd, 2008 at 7:27 pm
[...] Plugin Homepage [...]
februari 4th, 2008 at 8:06 pm
Hi,
This plugin looks very good, so well done.
However, I’ve run into a small issue I’m trying to figure out.
The reason I downloaded this plugin is because it gives me the opportunity to have more then one set of links.
In my case I want to use this for “affiliates” on the right sidebar, “portfolio” on the left sidebar.
So I added 1 on the right and 1 on the left.
In the parameters I’ve filled in “affiliates in Category ID for the right one and “portfolio” for the left one.
This is where the issue lies…
Both of the categories show up on both sidebars. And I only want one on each.
Am I simply stretching the limits of the widget, or am I not understanding how it works and simply used a wrong setup?
I’ve looked around for info on what all the parameters exactly do but I can’t seem to find it so you may not have posted it anywhere.
juni 26th, 2008 at 8:38 pm
Hi Breukie,
I’m sure you’ve moved on from this project by now, just wanted to report that the widget still almost works, the only issue i noticed in wp 2.5.1 is that the $number is not passed correctly to the function that calls wp_list_bookmarks, so none of the customized options are used. I hacked a workaround by setting $number = 1; at the top of the function. Thanks for the great plugin
juli 30th, 2008 at 2:05 pm
Hi,
your plugins seems to be nice, but it seems not to me working.
Are yu still using or updating it?
Is there a new version planed or can you release one?
Thank you very much
augustus 15th, 2008 at 9:36 pm
Hi… I downloaded your widget and for some reason my link descriptions are still not showing up. Is there something I need to change in the theme template? I’m a relative beginner…
april 25th, 2009 at 11:20 am
Why would the widget only be allowed to install in one sidebar and then become unavailable after the first one? I’m running 2.7.1 - any more recent updates?
mei 6th, 2009 at 6:31 pm
[...] Breukie’s Links Widget for Wordpress von Arnold Breukhoven nutzt die wp_list_bookmarks Funktion und stellt damit mehr Einstellmöglichkeiten als das mitgelieferte Links Widget zur Verfügung. Bookmarks setzen: Diese Icons verlinken auf Bookmark Dienste bei denen Nutzer neue Inhalte finden und mit anderen teilen können. [...]
januari 16th, 2010 at 7:09 am
[...] 2nd, 2007 by Dennis in Web Tags: blogging, links, themes, widgets, wordpress Ok, I found a widget that could replace the bookmark widget by simply allowing a customizable interface to the [...]
januari 25th, 2010 at 11:17 pm
To all users of this plugin.
My apologies, I haven’t updates my website, let alone my plugins for a long while. To be more exact, my last update was 2 more than 2 years ago.
The issues described in your comments are known to me and will be solved. I am now in the progress of updating and upgrading my website and after that will update my plugins too.
To all of you I’d like to day: I am sorry for the inconvenience
Please keep in mind that these plugins are free and to donwload just because it might help you and I like to share it with you all.