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The archives within WordPress are pretty limited in a sense that they do not offer much configuration beyond what they do. Date based will be date based, like category based archives will only display categories. This plugin mitigates the issue by giving date based archives the ability to list content by categories as well.
This is done via modification of the rewrite rules to allow for the ability to have permalinks like http://yourblog.com/2008/in-blog/. This basically is a date based archive that shows only entries from the “blog” category.
This plugin can also work without the usage of rewrite rules. It currently supports date based archives for years and months.
<h3>Usable Commands for Theme Developers</h3>
The PHP commands for theme developers to use are pretty straight forward.
cba_get_category_id() returns the current category ID of the archive.
cba_the_year() returns the current year of the date based archive.
cba_the_month() returns the current month of the date based archive.
cba_auto_thedate() gets the string representation of the date.
cba_get_year_link($year) returns the permalink for the year archive based on the current category.

Category Based Archives

Allows date based archives to be listed by category.

Eric Teubert

<h4>Quick Start</h4>
The plugin assumes your articles are well categorized. 
To display the archive, use the shortcode anywhere in a page or article.
<pre><code>[archivist category="kitten"]
[archivist tag="kitten"]
</code></pre>
Replace “kitten” with your category/tag. Watch out, we need the slug here. 
That’s the name without capital letters and spaces.
<h4>Placeholders</h4>
You can specify a custom template to display the archive elements. 
Go to <code>Settings > Archivist</code> for plugin preferences. 
Use HTML and any of the following template placeholders.
<ul>
<li><code>%TITLE%</code> – The post title.</li>
<li><code>%PERMALINK%</code> – The post permalink.</li>
<li><code>%AUTHOR%</code> – The post author.</li>
<li><code>%CATEGORIES%</code> – The post categories as unordered list.</li>
<li><code>%CATEGORIES|...%</code> – The post categories with a custom separator. Example: <code>%CATEGORIES|, %</code></li>
<li><code>%TAGS%</code> – The post tags with default separator.</li>
<li><code>%TAGS|...%</code> – The post tags with a custom separator. Example: <code>%TAGS|, %</code></li>
<li><code>%EXCERPT%</code> – The post excerpt.</li>
<li><code>%POST_META|...%</code> – Any post meta. Example: <code>%POST_META|duration%</code>.</li>
<li><code>%POST_META|...|...%</code> – Any post meta list, separated by custom HTML. Example: <code>%POST_META|guest| %</code></li>
<li><code>%DATE%</code> – The post date with default format.</li>
<li><code>%DATE|...%</code> – The post date with custom format. Example: <code>%DATE|Y/m/d%</code></li>
<li><code>%POST_THUMBNAIL|...x...%</code> – The post thumbnail with certain dimensions. Example: <code>%POST_THUMBNAIL|75x75%</code></li>
<li><code>%COMMENTS%</code> – The post comment count.</li>
<li><code>%ACF|field_name%</code> – Display <a href="https://www.advancedcustomfields.com" rel="nofollow ugc">ACF</a> field. Uses the <a href="https://www.advancedcustomfields.com/resources/get_field/" rel="nofollow ugc"><code>get_field()</code></a> function.</li>
</ul>
You can add your own placeholders:
<pre><code>add_filter( 'archivist_template_render', function( $template, $post ) {
 // modify $template
 return $template;
}, 10, 2 );
</code></pre>
<h4>Pagination</h4>
If you have many entries, you may prefer to paginate. The archivist comes with asynchronous pagination built-in. Use the <code>pagination</code> parameter in the shortcode to activate it. Its value is the amount of items you want to display per page.
<pre><code>[archivist category="kitten" pagination="10"]
</code></pre>
Pagination controls are displayed both on top and at the bottom of the archive. You can customize this by setting <code>controls</code> to <code>top</code> or <code>bottom</code>.
<pre><code>[archivist category="kitten" pagination="10" controls="top"]
</code></pre>
<h4>Filter by Query</h4>
Are you feeling bold? Is filtering by category or archive not satisfying you? Read on, I’ve got a challenge for you. 
WordPress uses a certain query syntax to define the so called loop which is used to display the archive. 
You can find the complete documentation at https://codex.wordpress.org/Class_Reference/WP_Query 
and you can take advantage of every single parameter or combination of parameters listed there. Some examples:
<pre><code>[archivist query="year=1984&author_name=gorwell"]
</code></pre>
Lists all entries from the year <code>1984</code> by the author with <code>user_nicename</code> <code>gorwell</code>.
<pre><code>[archivist query="tag=straw+mask&post_status=private&orderby=comment_count&order=DESC"]
</code></pre>
Lists all entries marked with post status <code>private</code> which are tagged with both <code>straw</code> and <code>mask</code>, ordered by the amount of comments in a descending order.
<h4>Using multiple Templates</h4>
When you install the plugin, there is just one templated called “default”. 
If you don’t specify a specific template in the shortcode, this one will be used. 
Therefore the following two shortcodes yield identical results.
<pre><code>[archivist category="kitten"]
[archivist category="kitten" template="default"]
</code></pre>
You can add as many templates as you like. Think twice before deleting one. If it’s still in use, the archive can’t be displayed.

Archivist – Custom Archive Templates

Shortcode Plugin to display an archive by category, tag or custom query. Customizable via HTML templates.

Category Based Archives vs Archivist – Custom Archive Templates