Ethan Lin

Hello,

Thank you for reaching out.

At the moment, I only work on the plugin when I have the time available to dedicate to it, so development is a bit limited and done as time permits.

Unfortunately, I also don’t have access to any of the code Dani may have worked on privately outside of the open-source repository, so I’m unable to reference or continue from that work directly.

That said, I’ll certainly keep your request in mind for a future release, as I can see how surname-based grouping and sorting, or grouping and sorting based on the first letter of the last word in a post title, could be useful for directory-style listings. I might have some time to look into it before or after the WordPress 7.0 release at the end of May, but I can’t guarantee a timeline or whether it will make it into a release.

Best regards,

Ethan

Hello,

The timeout isn’t caused by AlphaListing itself, but rather by your web server’s limits such as max_execution_time or server timeout responses. The quick and dirty solution is to ask your web host to increase the execution time or server timeout limit. However, …

Displaying 5,000, 10,000, or even 40,000 posts all on one A–Z listing page isn’t very practical. Not only can it trigger timeouts, but it also makes for a tough browsing experience. Visitors would be faced with an overwhelming amount of content to scroll through.

AlphaListing is more effective when broken into smaller, focused indexes. Its shortcode (or block) can be reused as many times as you like with different filters, so you can still give your site visitors an alphabetical view without loading everything at once.

Here are a few approaches that work well on larger sites:

• Split by category – Instead of a single mega index, create a separate A–Z index page for each category. This way, each index only has to deal with a smaller subset of posts, and visitors can go directly to the section that matters to them. Shortcode example:
  [alphalisting display="posts" post-type="post" taxonomy="category" terms="my-term-slug"]
• Group letters together – Instead of showing all 26 letters, group them (A–C, D–F, etc.) to lighten the page. Shortcode example:
  [alphalisting grouping="3"]
• List categories/tags instead of posts – For really large sites, show an A–Z of terms that link to their archive pages. You can create an A–Z of categories or tags instead of posts. Visitors then click a term to view all posts in that category. Shortcode example:
  [alphalisting display="terms" taxonomy="category"]

By using one or more of these options, you can keep your pages fast and user-friendly while still giving visitors an alphabetical way to explore your content. Since the AlphaListing block/shortcode can be reused with different filters, you have the flexibility to organize your listings in whatever way best fits your site. For a full overview of available shortcode options, please see the plugin page: https://ww.wp.xz.cn/plugins/alphalisting/.

Best,

Ethan

Hi Martin,

Yes, there are options available to change the number of columns, column width, and column gap. If you are using the Gutenberg (block) editor, those options are presented in the AlphaListing’s block settings. If you are using the shortcode, the following attributes are available: columns, column-width, and column-gap.

• columns: controls the target number of columns for the rendered list.
  • Default value: 3.
  • Accepts numeric values.
  • The rendered layout uses the CSS min() function to clamp the actual column count based on the user-specified value. That is, the layout won’t always render exactly the number of requested columns, but instead, the CSS min() function ensures the actual column count is capped by what can realistically fit, so the final layout is the smaller of the user’s request and the available space.
• column-width: sets the desired width for each column in the rendered list.
  • Default value: 15em.
  • Accepts any CSS length unit (such as px, em, rem, %, etc.).
• column-gap: controls the spacing between columns in the rendered list.
  • Default value: 0.6em.
  • Accepts any CSS length unit as well.

You are not required to use those attributes to adjust the layout, and you may need to play with different numbers to get the spacing you want. You can always override the listing’s style using any custom CSS.

Also, if you want to limit the number of items per column, at the moment, the only way to do it is to add and set $a_z_listing_minpercol variable to your desired number of items per column at top of the listing’s custom template file.

Best,
Ethan

Hello,

AlphaListing was originally forked from A-Z Listing, so the shortcode works the same way as the original plugin — the only difference is that instead of:

[a-z-listing ...]

you now use:

[alphalisting ...]

Everything else works exactly as it did before.

If you want to display your categories or tags themselves in an alphabetical list, you can use:

[alphalisting display="terms" taxonomy="category"]

or for tags:

[alphalisting display="terms" taxonomy="post_tag"]

If instead you’d like to display posts (grouped alphabetically by title) but limited to those belonging to a specific taxonomy, you can do this:

[alphalisting display="posts" taxonomy="category"]

And if you’d like the same idea but for pages (again, grouped alphabetically by title but limited to a taxonomy), just add the post-type:

[alphalisting display="posts" post-type="page" taxonomy="category"]

Just like the original A-Z Listing plugin, AlphaListing cannot group across different post types. So you can list and group posts, or list and group pages, but not a combined list of both at the same time. This is a limitation that has always existed and was not changed in AlphaListing.

Regarding private posts or pages: AlphaListing respects WordPress’s built-in visibility setting. If a post or page is set to Private in the editor (via Visibility → Private), it will not appear for visitors who are not logged in. If you see private items showing up while logged out, it’s worth double-checking how they were marked private. AlphaListing does not support “private” status applied by other means (such as third-party plugins or custom visibility settings).

On the difference between your “Search by Categories” and “Search by Tags” pages: the formatting issue happens because, on the “Search by Categories” page, the shortcode was placed inside <pre><code> elements. That causes WordPress to render it as preformatted text, which takes up extra space. If you move the shortcode outside of those tags so it stands alone in the editor, it should display correctly, the same as your “Search by Tags” page.

About the note on mbstring: this is a PHP server setting. AlphaListing requires the mbstring extension to be enabled for correct behavior. If it’s not enabled, you’ll need to contact your hosting provider to have them turn it on. To check whether mbstring is enabled, go to Tools → Site Health in your WordPress dashboard. If it’s active, you’ll see a “Passed test” item that says:

AlphaListing: PHP mbstring module is enabled

The only installation requirement that has changed compared to the original A-Z Listing plugin is the minimum required PHP version. AlphaListing now requires PHP 8.0 or higher.

You can find more shortcode examples, options, and FAQs in the plugin documentation.

Hello,

Thank you for using AlphaListing. Yes, it’s definitely possible to display the subtitle (in your case, a registered taxonomy) in the format “[TITLE] – [SUBTITLE]” by customizing the listing template.

To do this, you can copy the file templates/a-z-listing.php from the plugin directory into your theme’s root directory and name it a-z-listing.php. That custom template will allow you to modify how each product is displayed.

Within the template, you’ll find a loop like this:

<?php
while ( $a_z_query->have_items() ) :
  $a_z_query->the_item(); ?>
  <li>
    <a href="<?php $a_z_query->the_permalink(); ?>">
      <?php $a_z_query->the_title(); ?>
    </a>
  </li>
<?php endwhile; ?>

Inside that loop, you can use the $a_z_query->get_the_item_id() helper to get the product/post ID, and then use WordPress’s get_the_terms() function to retrieve the subtitle taxonomy and output it alongside the title. This gives you the flexibility to format each item exactly how you described.

Hi @danah ,

Thank you for your message and for using AlphaListing!

If I understood correctly, you would like to show the same post under different letters — for example, showing a post titled “HURT-PAIN-ACHE” under H, P, and A. That’s an interesting idea, but I’m sorry to say that this is not something AlphaListing is designed to do.

The plugin was created to be simple and easy to use. It shows each post one time, based only on the first letter of the title. It doesn’t check for other words or split the title into parts. Supporting this kind of setup would go beyond what the plugin was meant for and could make it more complicated for other users.

I hope you can understand, and I truly appreciate you taking the time to share your idea.

Best regards.

Thank you for reporting this. Could you elaborate on what happened before you encountered the critical error? Did you receive any messages indicating the cause of the error? Any additional information would be really helpful in pinpointing the source of the issue. Thank you.

Sorry for the super late response. The plugin has been updated to support Windows 10, Edge browser, and Linux OS.