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Easy Table of Contents

By Steven A. Zahm

Description

A user friendly, featured focused plugin which allows you to insert a table of contents into your posts, pages and custom post types.

Features

  • Automatically generate a table of contents for your posts, pages and custom post types by parsing its contents for headers.
  • Supports the <!--nextpage--> tag.
  • Supports the Rank Math plugin.
  • Works with the Classic Editor, Gutenberg, Divi, Elementor, WPBakery Page Builder and Visual Composer page editors.
  • Optionally enable for pages and/or posts. Custom post types are supported, as long as their content is output with the the_content() template tag.
  • Optionally auto insert the table of contents into the page, selectable by enabled post type.
  • Provides many easy to understand options to configure when and where to insert the table of contents.
  • Many options are available to configure how the inserted table of contents appears which include several builtin themes. If the supplied themes do no meet you needs, you can create your own by choosing you own colors for the border, background and link color.
  • Multiple counter bullet formats to choose from; none, decimal, numeric and roman.
  • Choose to display the table of contents hierarchical or not. This means headings of lower priority will be nested under headings of higher priority.
  • User can optionally hide the table of contents. You full control of this feature. It can be disabled and you can choose to have it hidden by default.
  • Supports smooth scrolling.
  • Selectively enable or disabled the table of contents on a post by post basis.
  • Choose which headings are used to generate the table of contents. This too can be set on a post by post basis.
  • Easily exclude headers globally and on a post by post basis.
  • If you rather not insert the table of contents in the post content, you can use the supplied widget and place the table of contents in your theme’s sidebar.
  • The widgets supports being affixed or stuck on the page so it is always visible as you scroll down the page. NOTE: this is an advanced option since every theme is different, you might need support from your theme developer to learn what the correct item selector to use in the settings to enable this feature.
  • The widget auto highlights the sections currently visible on the page. The highlight color is configurable.
  • Developer friendly with many action hooks and filters available. More can be added by request on Github. Pull requests are welcomed.

Live Examples

Here are links to documentation pages for several of the premium templates for the Connections Business Directory plugin which utilize the widget included with this plugin:

Roadmap

  • Fragment caching for improved performance.
  • Improve SEO by adding options to add nofollow to TOC link and wrap TOC nav in noindex tag.
  • Improve accessibility.
  • Add Bullet and Arrow options for list counter style.

Credit

Easy Table Contents is a fork of the excellent Table of Contents Plus plugin by Michael Tran.

Screenshots

  • The General section of the settings.
  • The Appearance section of the settings.
  • The Advanced section of the settings.

Installation

Using the WordPress Plugin Search

  1. Navigate to the Add New sub-page under the Plugins admin page.
  2. Search for easy table of contents.
  3. The plugin should be listed first in the search results.
  4. Click the Install Now link.
  5. Lastly click the Activate Plugin link to activate the plugin.

Uploading in WordPress Admin

  1. Download the plugin zip file and save it to your computer.
  2. Navigate to the Add New sub-page under the Plugins admin page.
  3. Click the Upload link.
  4. Select Easy Table of Contents zip file from where you saved the zip file on your computer.
  5. Click the Install Now button.
  6. Lastly click the Activate Plugin link to activate the plugin.

Using FTP

  1. Download the plugin zip file and save it to your computer.
  2. Extract the Easy Table of Contents zip file.
  3. Create a new directory named easy-table-of-contents directory in the ../wp-content/plugins/ directory.
  4. Upload the files from the folder extracted in Step 2.
  5. Activate the plugin on the Plugins admin page.

FAQ

Ok, I’ve installed this… what do I do next?

You first stop should be the Table of Contents settings admin page. You can find this under the Settings menu item.

You first and only required decision is you need to decide which post types you want to enable Table of Contents support for. By default it is the Pages post type. If on Pages is the only place you plan on using Table of Contents, you have nothing to do on the Settings page. To keep things simple, I recommend not changing any of the other settings at this point. Many of the other settings control when and where the table of contents is inserted and changing these settings could cause it not to display making getting started a bit more difficult. After you get comfortable with how this works… then tweak away 🙂

With that out of the way make sure to read the How are the tables of contents created? FAQ so you know how the Table of Contents is automatically generated. After you have the page headers setup, or before, either way… Scroll down on the page you’ll see a metabox named “Table of Contents“, enable the Insert table of contents. option and Update and/or Publish you page. The table of contents should automatically be shown at the top of the page.

How are the tables of contents created?

The table of contents is generated by the headers found on a page. Headers are the <h1>,<h2>,<h3>,<h4>,<h5>,<h6> HTML tags. If you are using the WordPres Visual Post Editor, these header tags are used and inserted into the post when you select one of the Heading n options from the formatting drop down. Each header that is found on the page will create a table of content item. Here’s an example which will create a table of contents containing the six items.

<h1>Item 1</h1>
<h1>Item 2</h1>
<h1>Item 3</h1>
<h1>Item 4</h1>
<h1>Item 5</h1>
<h1>Item 6</h1>

You can also create “nested” table of contents. This is difficult to explain so I’ll illustrate building on the previous example. In this example a table of contents will be created with the same six items but now the first three will each an child item nested underneath it. The indentation is not necessary, it was only added for illustration purposes.

<h1>Item 1</h1>
    <h2>Item 1.1 -- Level 2</h2>
<h1>Item 2</h1>
    <h2>Item 2.1 -- Level 2</h2>
<h1>Item 3</h1>
    <h2>Item 3.1 -- Level 2</h2>
<h1>Item 4</h1>
<h1>Item 5</h1>
<h1>Item 6</h1>

You are not limited to a single a single nested item either. You can add as many as you need. You can even create multiple nested levels…

<h1>Item 1</h1>
    <h2>Item 1.1 -- Level 2</h2>
        <h3>Item 1.1.1 -- Level 3</h3>
        <h3>Item 1.1.2 -- Level 3</h3>
        <h3>Item 1.1.3 -- Level 3</h3>
    <h2>Item 1.2 -- Level 2</h2>
      <h3>Item 1.2.1 -- Level 3</h3>
      <h3>Item 1.2.2 -- Level 3</h3>
      <h3>Item 1.2.3 -- Level 3</h3>
    <h2>Item 1.3 -- Level 2</h2>
<h1>Item 2</h1>
    <h2>Item 2.1 -- Level 2</h2>
    <h2>Item 2.2 -- Level 2</h2>
<h1>Item 3</h1>
    <h2>Item 3.1 -- Level 2</h2>
    <h2>Item 3.2 -- Level 2</h2>
<h1>Item 4</h1>
<h1>Item 5</h1>
<h1>Item 6</h1>

You can nest up 6 levels deep if needed. I hope this helps you understand how to create and build your own auto generated table of contents on your sites!

Reviews

A great MUST HAVE, easy to configure and run!

April 23, 2020
I don't use to waste my time writing down reviews... but this time I really feel I have to. Added Easy Table of Contents to my WordPress many months ago, but could'n make it work at all. So after a bit of trying, I simply gave up. My site is powered by Uncode, a heavily customized WP theme that comes with WPBakery Page Builder, which has a further customization specifically designed for getting the most from Uncode. This makes many plugins that has to do with the content, giving me a hard time to make it work, some of them without even a chance to. A few days ago I decided to spend some time again to find out how to properly configure EasyToC for my site, because I really wanted to use it in my blog. So I started searching and reading tutorials, plus watching videos about how to properly set it up. All of it showed that it only needs a bunch of check marks in the backend, and it will automatically insert ToC in your content. But still... not in my case. So I decided to go beyond my solitary search and opened a thread in the support forum... ... ... ...and I was amazed at the speed with which Steven responded to my inquiry! O_O He went straight to looking into my own issue and solved it in less than HALF A DAY!!! o_O WHAT!??!? Is this the support you expect from a FREE PRODUCT!??!?? No way people!! You don't get such a BLASTING FAST RESPONSE even from those bloody PREMIUM MEMBERSHIPs out there! Again please keep in mind that he allow us to get this useful plug-in FOR FREE!! Not even a price of a coffee!! Do all those people that gives 2 stars in their review know how much time is spent in coding these kind of stuffs?? So guys before popping up and leave a bad review just think about getting in touch with the developer first. After that if your issue can't be solved... go further, instead of denigrating the time that people invest free of charge for others. Beside this great experience, let's say that I really loved Easy ToC as it is very easy to configure and run. And if you still are not satisfied of the customization options in settings, it is also easily customizable with a bit of CSS coding. Definitely a great plugin all website owner should have! KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK STEVEN!! (and thanks again for the time you spent for my issue!) Marco

Been using this for years

April 7, 2020
Been using this for many years on my website, and I have seen more and more websites use it in recent times. Never had any issues with it. Great plugin.

Un excelente plug con actualizaciones y mejoras constantes

March 12, 2020
Magnifico, corrigieron el programa y lanzaron la actualización el mismo día, felicidades! ............................................. ...en la actualización 2.0.2 Si la tabla se ha configurado para estar "Antes del primer encabezado" Todo el contenido de la tabla se anida en la etiqueta <h2></h2> del encabezado. Entonces la tipografía y estilo de la tabla toma las características <h2> del tema. Esto no pasa si se coloca "Arriba" o "Al fondo"

Just work!

February 26, 2020
Et facile à personnaliser avec ça. Merci beaucoup et bonne continuation!

Prompt support

February 15, 2020
I was really impressed by how timely Steven always got back to me with my support questions- faster than even some of the paid plug ins! Plug in also works well now, with his help.

Excellent plugin!!

February 12, 2020
Exactly what we needed. A great help for our users to easily navigate our more complicated posts. As well, excellent and very prompt support for an issue that came up. Definitely worthy of some $.
Read all 83 reviews

Contributors & Developers

“Easy Table of Contents” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.

Contributors

“Easy Table of Contents” has been translated into 8 locales. Thank you to the translators for their contributions.

Translate “Easy Table of Contents” into your language.

Interested in development?

Browse the code, check out the SVN repository, or subscribe to the development log by RSS.

Changelog

2.0.11 05/01/2020

  • COMPATIBILITY: Add support for the Uncode theme.
  • COMPATIBILITY: Do not run on WooCommerce pages.
  • DEV: Correct typo in phpDoc.

2.0.10 04/20/2020

  • TWEAK: Add trailing span to heading, to prepare for # option and to fix duplicate heading title matching.
  • TWEAK: Add second heading search/replace function to search for heading in content with heading html entities decoded. May help Beaver Builder users as it seems like it does not encode HTML entities as WP core does.

2.0.9 04/08/2020

  • TWEAK: AMP/Caching plugins seems to break anchors with colons and periods even though they are valid characters for the id attribute in HTML5.
  • TWEAK: Replace multiple underscores with a single underscore.
  • DEV: Update the UWS library which fixes the deprecation notice for PHP 7.4.
  • DEV: Add phpcs.xml.dist.
  • DEV: Strict type checks.
  • DEV: Inline doc updates.

2.0.8 04/03/2020

  • TWEAK: Convert <br /> tags in headings to a space.
  • TWEAK: Add additional widget classes.
  • TWEAK: Improve the sanitization of the excluded headings field post setting.
  • TWEAK: Minor optimization of creating the matching pattern for excluding headings for improved performance.
  • COMPATIBILITY: Exclude Create by Mediavine from heading eligibility.
  • BUG: Ensure excluded headings are removed from the headings array.
  • BUG: Ensure empty headings are removed from the headings array.

2.0.7 04/02/2020

  • NEW: Exclude any HTML nodes with the class of .ez-toc-exclude-headings.
  • TWEAK: Change smooth scroll selector from 'body a' to 'a.ez-toc-link'.
  • TWEAK: Declare JS variables.
  • TWEAK: Support unicode characters for the id attribute. Permitted by HTML5.
  • TWEAK: Move the in-page anchor/span to before the heading text to account for long headings where it line wraps.
  • TWEAK: Slight rework to ezTOC widget container classes logic.
  • TWEAK: Cache bust the JS to make dev easier.
  • TWEAK: JavaScript cleanup.
  • TWEAK: URI Encode the id attribute to deal with reserved characters in JavaScript. Technically not necessary for the id attribute but needed to work with the jQuery smoothScroll library.
  • COMPATIBILITY: Reintroduce filter to exclude Ultimate Addons for VC Composer Tabs from heading eligibility.
  • BUG: Correct array iteration logic when processing headings.
  • BUG: Tighten matching for headings in excluded HTML nodes. The loose matching was excluding far too many headings.
  • BUG: Use esc_attr() instead of esc_url() for the anchor href because valid id attribute characters would cause it to return an empty href which cause a nonworking link.

2.0.6 03/30/2020

  • BUG: Ensure minified files are current.

2.0.5 03/27/2020

  • BUG: Prevent possible “strpos(): Empty needle in” warnings when excluding nodes from TOC eligibility.

2.0.4 03/16/2020

  • NEW: Introduce the ez_toc_container_class filter.
  • TWEAK: Slight rework to ezTOC container classes logic.
  • BUG: sprintf() was eating % in the TOC heading item.
  • BUG: Do not insert TOC at top of post if before first heading option is selected even if first heading can not be found. Some page builders cause the TOC to insert twice or on blog pages.

2.0.3 03/12/2020

  • TWEAK: Slightly tighten heading matching, last update made it a little too loose.
  • BUG: Correct logic required to place TOC before first heading which is required for the more lax heading matching required for page builders.

2.0.2 03/12/2020

  • COMPATIBILITY: Remove filter to exclude Ultimate Addons for VC Composer Tabs from heading eligibility.
  • COMPATIBILITY: Add additional filters to improve Elementor compatibility.
  • TWEAK: Loosen heading matching when doing find/replace to insert in page links. Excluding the opening heading tag to allow matching heading where page builders dynamically add classes and id which break heading matching during find/replace.

2.0.1 03/09/2020

  • COMPATIBILITY: Exclude the WordPress Related Posts plugin nodes.
  • COMPATIBILITY: Exclude a couple Atomic Block plugin nodes.
  • COMPATIBILITY: Exclude JetPack Related Posts from heading eligibility.
  • COMPATIBILITY: Exclude Ultimate Addons for VC Composer Tabs from heading eligibility.
  • COMPATIBILITY: Exclude WP Product Reviews from heading eligibility.
  • TWEAK: Prevent possible “strpos(): Empty needle in” warnings when excluding nodes from TOC eligibility.

2.0 02/01/2020

  • NEW: Major rewrite of all code and processing logic to make it faster and more reliable.
  • NEW: Support for the

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Issues resolved in last two months:

120 out of 137

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