Today we’ll be reviewing a fun little plugin called Flexo Archives, but before we do, lets talk a little bit about Widgets.

What’s a widget?

A WordPress Widget is a plugin (or part of a plugin) that is designed to provide a simple way to arrange the various elements of your blog’s sidebar content without having to change any code.

- Paraphrase from WordPress.org’s Widget Page

So in other words, a widget can be seen as the physical manifestation of a plugin on your site.

If you take a look at the side of the screen you’ll see FuglyCode’s sidebar, and within that sidebar you’ll see a login form (that is, unless you’re logged in, of course), which is one of a handful of widgets displayed on the site.

Some plugins will come with one or many widgets, that you can freely add to your sidebar as you see fit, whereas others do not require a widget to work (Akismet, for example, does not need to be displayed on the sidebar for it to filter comment spam).

Large Archives

The Popular Archives Widget

One of the most popular widgets I’ve seen on blogs is the Archives widget (which should be somewhere on FuglyCode’s sidebar as well).  The widget lists each month your blog has been in operation, along with the number of posts for that month.  When the visitor clicks on the month, they are presented with a short description of each post and can read further by clicking on those posts.

This widget is very useful, as it allows visitors to jump to past posts that would otherwise be buried deep within your blog with just one click.  An issue arises, however, when your blog begins to age.  My personal site, for example, has been online for over two years, and the default Archives Widget (seen to the left) has gotten quite long.

Flexo Archives to the Rescue!

Large archives can become a nuisance to visitors, and take up a lot of valuable site retail space on your blog.  Luckily, today’s plugin offers a quick and easy solution to the problem.

Developed by heathharrelson, Flexo Archives comes with its own widget that you can use instead of the default Archives widget provided by WordPress.  The widget regroups the months of your archive into collapsible years, which visitors can then click on to expand.

Its very easy to install (honestly, it only takes 2 to 3 clicks of the mouse), although it only works if visitors have JavaScript enabled (without javascript, all months display just like the default archive plugin).  Some users have also reported that their archive list will sometimes not match the look of their blog.  This is more often than not caused by the blog’s stylesheets not having any defined styles for lists.

Flexo Archives

The Recap

Pros:

• Quick and easy install
• Removes website/blog clutter
• Easy to use

Cons:

• JavaScript must be enabled
• Stylesheets may need to be updated for bullet lists to match blog theme

You can find out more about Flexo Archives on the WordPress Plugins Directory