Magazine Columns Free WordPress Plugin
Posted on March 28, 2009 | Category: Downloads
I have been spending a lot of time developing my Magazine Basic theme so I guess I have magazines on the brain. While speaking with a colleague, I got the idea to create a plugin that would create columns in posts or pages, similar to a magazine article. Thus, Magazine Columns was created.
All you need to do is download the plugin and add the <!--column--> tag to your post or page with the column quicktag in the HTML editor or manually. You can create up to five columns.
View Changelog
Version 1.0.3 (2009-04-01)
- Fixed IE styles
- Removed extra line breaks
- Added start and stop columns tags
- Removed problamatic if statement
- Public Release
If you require help or support, please visit the 
Hello,
i tried your plugin in several Themes. I cleared the Browser Cache, but there are still no colums? Any idea?
Best,
Karl
Works great, thank you
Hey Chris, great plugin! Thanks for taking the time to work this one out.
Great idea for a plugin! Unfortunately after install in a latest version WP site, it is not working. There is no button in the tinyMCE interface. There is a column button in the html interface, clicking it does not place any code. Adding the code manually has no impact.
I hope to get it working.
Jeff
I am using WP 2.7.1 with a custom theme. I added the tag but no colons are visible in any browser. I added it on the post in the link.
Any suggestions?
It doesnt work in wp 2.7.1. I cant get it visible, plugin is activated and code is applied manually in the html view in the article, but no columns. Any sugegstion?
I too tested on several templates. Does not work!
Hey,
I like the idea of splitting the content in columns. Unfortunately the plugin does not work. I tried the command (as described on top of this page) and I tried the command (as described on the FAQ-page in the worpress-plugin directory.
Have I to put the command at the point, where the text shall be divided in columns AND at the end? Or only at the beginning and once again before the next column?
Help would really appreciated.
Thanks in advance
Michael
Same here.
Installed the plugin but it didn’t work. Maybe it is interfering with some other plugin i have installed.
Eike
Hey all,
I just tested the plugin on three different installs of WordPress 2.7.1 and it works perfectly. The columns tag only appears in the HTML editor, not the visual editor. Once I figure out how to add a button there I will.
The resulted columns should only appear on single posts and pages.
There may be some conflict with other plugins that filer the_content() function. Let me look into it. If anyone can try to deactivate some of their plugins and find out which might be the culprit that would really help me out.
Alright, so the plugin works splendidly for me! The only issue that I have is it is not validating well… It tells me I cannot have style in the body, which we all know is a “no, no”, but if I remove that tag, the plugin launches a fatal error. Any suggestion(s)?
-Thanks
Has just disconnected all plugins. Has left active Magazine Columns. Tested on three templates. Does not work. Tested on WP 2.7.1
I hope that the problem will dare
Best regards
Also overhere; tried it on my local servers – with only this plugin running.
Does not work on my ThemeHybrid. But also not on WordPress Classic theme…
It only ads an extra empty line.
Using your magazine theme on WP 2.7.1 it works on the post page, but not on the font page. (When said post is main post on front page).
Thanks for all your testing. I discovered the problem. Had an if statement that did not work properly. Please update to the new version which should be on WordPress.org shortly and let me know if it works.
Now it works on 2.7.1! Thanks!
I just wonder: is it any possibility to add a from where in the post you wish the column formatting to end?
If you have social services or other stuff at the bottom of the post templates, everything will be broken into columns, and that might look a bit bizarre.
PS: It might have been som confusion since and are mentioned as the tag…
Sorry to double twit: I see the codes are gone, i just wondered if it was possible to add a STOP COULMNS tag to prevent that everything in the post template will be broken into columns (like social services and other stuff at the bottom of the template).
And the PS was because COLUMN and COLUMNS are both used as examples of the quicktag.
Hi,
Has tested the new version a plugin. All works!
Thanks
The new Version works
But it Seems that the plugin does not work together with Nextgen Gallery. If i use Columns in a post the gallery is not shown.
So a stop Column Tag would be helpfull
I updated to the 1.0.1 release, and unfortunately it is still not working.
Here is the generated code in my test page (with spacing to get code to display, hopefully):
This is text in column one, klsdjgl klsjdlkjsa ;asjs;lkj klj l;ksj al;sdjlj ;l lsjlkj lksj;klj;l slkjlk lkjlkj ;lj ;ladj;l ;ljklakj ;lakj ;ljkl ;lj lsjdl;kasj dk;lasdjflj l;ksjdf;fljasdd;lfj;lfjflkj kdjkl; l ldkj ;ldkj lkssdjf l;slkdj lskdjflksld lskdj ;lsdk .
This is text in column two dfcc as;klj fl pdffpo[f posdfpospfo posipfo po[sdifpo[ posdpo[ psodffpo[ sdpofposdd os po p[osdffp posddifopo possdfpoi po[sdfpo posdpoi pso po[sdpo posdifpo popo sdpo fpopoposd[p po posdf
What it does is simply display the text in paragraphs. I am running WP 2.7.
Jeff
OK, how can I ad code here and make it display!!
Jeff
Use <code></code>.
I really would like to suggest a possible COLUMN STOP tag. This would be very, very useful for those who use themes with a lot of stuff embedded at the bottom of the single post template, stuff that shouldn’t break up into columns.
I hope it will come, cause the plugin formats very nice.
Keep up the good work, thanks in advance!
I am working on a start columns and stop columns command. Should be finished soon.
Thanks for your work!, great plugin.
Is there any chance to add a button to the visual editor? or an option page?
Regards!
That sound’s like very good news
Thanks for your work.
Excellent!!!! Cant wait to try it out!
Hey Alejandro,
I haven’t figures out how to add it to the visual editor yet. When I do you will get a button. As for an options page, not really an option to change right now. If you can think of any please make suggestions.
For Options page I was thinking for the chance for selecting 2, 3 or more columns by default, with no needing to add the
What do you think about it?
Testing the plug-in and for some reason, the first column floats right (and not left like in your pic).
Also is there a way to control column breaks or what is the behavior for column breaks?
The way it works right now: it displays the post on the right side, then comes the column break, then the post-meta is displayed at the top left content spot.
Testing with your Magazine Basic Theme, Settings: 1024 px, Content area left, one 360px sidebar right.
Maybe the float-settings of the Theme collide with the column floats?
Great plug-in though – I guess e.g. a travelogue presented this way will look quite polished
Pete
Update to the new version and please see if it solves this problem. Thanks.
Think I found something in the parsed source html:
...#col_two1 { float: left; width: 48%; } #col_two2 { float: right; width: 48%; } .columns img { width: 98% } br.clear { clear: both; }
#col_two1 { float: left; width: 48%; } #col_two2 { float: right; width: 48%; } .columns img { width: 98% } br.clear { clear: both; }
...
It looks like the div id=”col_two1″ closes way too early and styles get declared multiple times…
Hope it helps…
Pete
… even with the code-tag some things get filtered, that’s why above snippet doesn’t make much sense. sry bout that
Hmm. Trying to figure out a solution to that.
Found a very similar plugin
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-post-columns/
Yup. Just saw that. It has a different approach but I guess the results are similar.
c.bavota,
I’m using your plugin on your Magazine Basic theme. There is a problem in the single.php file. The “This entry was posted on …” which appears in small type after each article starts before the last column with just “This” and the rest of it appears after the column.
It should appear at the end of the article with at least one space separating it from the article.
Also, in an article without an image, there is a space to the left as if it expected an image. The article starts after that. (In other words, the article is floated to the right.)
Hope that helps. I don’t have any other plugins which would be interfering with your plugin.
Ron
Hey Ron,
Do you have an example I can take a look at? Send me the url.
Version 1.0.3 just uploaded.
Are you sure you uploaded ver. 1.0.3? I had to change the stable version inside the file from 1.0.1.to 1.0.3., just to get it to replace the old plugin.
Also, I didn’t see any ending tag for this version.
I didn’t notice a change once I installed this.
Ron
Hey Ron,
Seems like version 1.0.3 is uploaded properly. I just did an upgrade on a few sites. The only changes are in how the columns display in IE7.
I was mistaken. Something is still wrong though. Version 1.0.2 seems to be working. When I replaced 1.0.2 with version 1.0.3, the “This entry was posted…” was no longer at the bottom of the post. So I switched back to ver. 1.0.2.
I am using Foxpro ver. 3.0.7.
Hey Ron,
I did not receive a link. Send it through the contact form please.
Ok. Link has been sent through contact form.
Let me know if you don’t receive it.
If I start Magazine Columns the AdSense Manager doesn’t seem to work.
Another Problem
The Plugin works but the preview pictures seem to be automaticly resized and look awful.
Also i noticed that the culumns seem to interfere with the Lightbox plugin.
And its hard to use because you have to make it like try and error. Because I’m not able to see it beforehand.
Also it is not shown in Windows live writer.
Yeah, that’s the only problem for me right now. I love how it works and it’s perfect for my site, but the distorted pictures don’t look good.
I haven’t had any problem with the pictures. That sounds like another plugin interfering with the post.
Are you putting the “startcolumns” before the picture? That includes the picture in the column and the way it should be done if you want the text to wrap around the picture.
If you’re talking about viewing in the visual editor, that’s not going to show you how it will look in your post.
Yes puted it around the picture (including)
but the Picture was maybe 50*50 in size and was then doubled in size and that looks very bad.
I don’t understand why the preview pictures are resized anyway?
The text wraps around the picture, but the preview picture looks distorted. And it seems that Lightbox doesn’t work anymore when i have columns.
You might want to check your WordPress Settings under Media.
Look at the thumbnail settings and see what you have there. Is this checked? That might be why it is resizing.
If it is not your settings, I would suspect that it is one of your other plugins causing the problem. The best thing to try there is to deactivate them one by one until the problem goes away.
Using magazine columns with magazine basic theme. The plugin works fine on posts, but not on pages. I’m using the latest version and also tried in on another website (with another theme) and has the same problem: works with posts, not with pages. Any idea how come?
Much progress!
OK, using 1.0.3, I am also experiencing that it works (mostly) with posts, but not at all with pages, like Ronald before me.
And, as long as I only split into 2 columns, the start/stop functionality works fine (in posts), which is likely mostly good enough. But if I add a third column, the
does not stop the 3rd column. At the bottom of the 3rd column are some links meant for the end of the post.This is looking great, nice job!
Jeff
I can confirm to you that the plugin works on 2.7.1 – there are no problems whatsoever. I think the other people having problems need to look into the theme they’re using and their plugins because your plugin does work flawlessly.
Jessi,
Most plugins work across the board with most themes, the fact that a plugin does nto work with some themes CAN mean the theme is the issue, but in many cases, it is the case that the plugin needs further development.
I think this plugin has made great progress, but it can be improved.
Jeff
found why my posts’s footer was glueing in colum4 (the last one) even if was properly put in between:
in magazine-columns around line 102 change
echo " br.clear { clear: both; }";
by
echo " .clear { clear: both; }";
so that p.clear and br.clear are both working
hope that helps
If I install this plugin I always get this message:
Warning: include_once(/hp/ao/ac/vi/www/blog/wp-content/plugins/magazine-basic/) [function.include-once]: failed to open stream: Success in /hp/ao/ac/vi/www/blog/wp-settings.php on line 473
Warning: include_once() [function.include]: Failed opening ‘/hp/ao/ac/vi/www/blog/wp-content/plugins/magazine-basic/’ for inclusion (include_path=’.:/etc/php:/usr/local/share/php5.1:/usr/local/share/php5:/usr/local/share/php:/usr/share/php5.1:/usr/share/php5:/usr/share/php’) in /hp/ao/ac/vi/www/blog/wp-settings.php on line 473
What could be the problem? What must I modify to solve this issue?
You are installing the theme magazine-basic to the plugins directory. You must download the plugin magazine-columns to the plugin directory.
Excuse me, but don’t you mean the contents/themes/ directory?
Mo
I see your plugin as a good idea but was wondering why when I see it in preview it looks correct but once it is published it looks different. As when I set it up and want to see how it looks in preview, it the same as WYSIWIG, recently with my most recent post when I published it, it came out differently. Is it a bug or a matter of the theme? Your insight into this matter would be appreciated.
This plugin does not work with the visual wysiwyg editor. You will only see it working on the front end.
Great theme! Is there a simple way to ad more post than 6. I think themefunction.php. I’m stumped. I would like to fill out the page in recent post.
This has been the most WP fun I have had in years!
Are you referring to my Magazine Basic theme? If so, you can change the number of posts on the front page in the admin section under Magazine Basic => Layout.
Look all the way at the bottom of the left-column, in your admin area. I didn’t see it at first, either.
When using the “excerpts” versus “contents” option, I am having a problem. It’s not really a problem of the system, just a “difference” from what I’d like.
What happens is, when choosing the “excerpt” option, the theme automatically places my “image” at the top of each post. However, the image in question is my signature, so I don’t really want it anywhere but at the bottom of my posts. Or, removed altogether.
Is there anyway to adjust the program so that it doesn’t automatically include that in the excerpt variation?
Thanks in advance– great theme otherwise, by the way.
Mo
Also…
Where would I change the font formatting for the secondary pages? If in the styles sheets, under what command?
Thanks again!
Mo
Halloo! Still waiting for a reply!
Also had another question: I notice that my categories are in alphabetical order across the top, rather than the order within the My Categories area.
Any way to change that?
hello?
Hey Mo,
You are on the wrong page for questions about the Magazine Basic theme. This is the Magazine Columns plugin page.
But to answer your questions:
1) Open up index.php and remove or place the
getImage()function below thetheme_content()ortheme_excerpt()function.2) Not too sure which pages you refer to but you can add
font-familystyles to the style.css file. Go to pages you want to change the fonts on and look at the source code. Look for the areas you want and their surrounding div tags. Here you will see either an ID or a CLASS. The name after that is the style you want to change.3) Look for a plugin to change your category order. WordPress doesn’t have this function so a plugin is the way to go.
You can change the alphabetical order of your categories across the top of the menu to the id order of your categories.
In the header.php file look for this line:
“$cats = wp_list_categories(‘exclude=1&echo=0&title_li=’);”
And change it to this:
“$cats = wp_list_categories(‘orderby=id&exclude=1&echo=0&title_li=’);”
Or you can use a plugin as Chris suggested.
For Options page I was thinking for the chance for selecting 2, 3 or more columns by default, with no needing to add a shortcode or the
print("<!--column-->");What do you think about it?
So did anyone figure out the STOP COLUMN tag yet? It’d be really useful for this plugin.
There is a “stopcolumns” tag in the latest version of the plugin.
I’m having a problem: if I try to add any content before the “start columns” tag, it won’t show up. It seems that content can only be placed AFTER the “start columns” tag. Is there a way to fix this?
The plugin cuts off any content before “startcolumns” and any content after “stopcolumns”. It also doesn’t allow for any shortcodes in the columns.
The only way to fix it is to alter the plugin. I have sent Chris messages on this.
Fantastic! Thank you!
How do I get this plugin to show columns on front page?
It only works for the post pages, not the front page.
I like the plugin and like thousand others, was waiting for it, while using WP-Post Columns. Here are the current problems; maybe there is already a solution for them, please advise:
1. The plugin cuts any text before “Start columns” (like, an introduction) and after “stop columns” (like, footnotes).
2. It erases all formatting between “start” and “stop”, especially “carriage return”, i.e. new paragraphs, subtitles, etc.
Thx
Gabriel
I have used it. Its great wordpress the made life easy for webmaster and bloggers. Thanks
Great Plugin! Works great in WP 2.8.2. Thanks for the plugin!
No no no. wp 2.8.2 & 2.8.4 it’s not working.no matter what I do!