WordPress Plugin: Category Checklist Tree

The Category Checklist Tree plugin may sound pretty boring but in reality it’s an extremely simple and useful plugin!

If you’ve ever found yourself perplexed by the behaviour of the Categories lists in WordPress, this is the plugin for you. How might I be annoyed by the WordPress categories list you ask? Well it all has to to with hierarchy.

This is best illustrated by an example. To the left is how it should look. The Guides category has 4 categories within to separate each grouping of guides.

To the right is what happens when you select any number of categories from the list. Normally this is a good thing. The items that are checked off show at the very top; making it very easy to tell which categories the post you’re viewing falls under. However as soon as you’ve got a heirarchy, it becomes a problem because placing checked items at the top of the list removes the others from their categorization. As you can see on the right, the Email and General categories have been ‘kicked’ out of their “Guides” parent category. Now you can’t tell what belongs where!

This is what the Category Checklist Tree plugin fixes.

How to Install

Install the Category Checklist Tree the usual way you install any plugin. Simply log in to your WordPress admin, choose Plugins > Add New and then search for “Category Checklist Tree”. Click Install Now below the description of the plugin, then click “Activate Plugin”

That’s it! It will now automatically show the correct hierarchy in all Category listings, no matter which categories have been checked off.