KJ Coop

<p>This plugin will display a given number of random blogroll categories to show.<br />
It will show all the links in those categories.</p>
<h3>Usage</h3>
<p>Unless you’ve changed some defaults, your blogroll is most likely displayed by<br />
the following line of code in wp-content/themes/[your theme]/sidebar.php:
    </p>
<p>The simplest way to display a random category is just by replacing that line<br />
with a call to blogroll_random_category:
    </p>
<p>If you want to include a link to the whole blogroll, you can create a page in<br />
wordpress using the links template. Note the permalink. If you’ve already got a<br />
list of your pages in the sidebar, you’re in business. Otherwise you can add one<br />
with the following line of code:<br />
    <a href="[your permalink]" rel="nofollow ugc">See complete blogroll</a></p>
<p>If your blogroll is not set to be categorized, or if there is only one category,<br />
it will return the whole thing untouched.</p>
<h3>Advanced</h3>
<h3>Showing multiple categories</h3>
<p>If you want multiple categories returned, you can send the function that number.<br />
For example:</p>
<p>will return 5 randomized categories. If you only have 4 categories, it will<br />
return all of them in a random order.</p>
<h3>Retaining arguments sent to wp_list_bookmarks</h3>
<p>If you’re sending arguments to wp_list_bookmarks, you can send those to<br />
blogroll_random_category and it will pass them along to wp_list bookmarks. In<br />
this example, we’re showing all categories except #23:
    </p>
<p>The change below will show five random categories, none of which will be #23. If<br />
you only have four categories, this will return the three that are not #23:
    </p>
<h3>To show one category all the time and the rest randomize the rest</h3>
<p>In the sidebar you can explicitly call that category. When only one category is<br />
selected, this plugin knows to return it as it is. Any subsequent calls to<br />
blogroll_random_category ought to be instructed to exclude it in order to avoid<br />
the possibility that it happens to be randomly selected:</p>
<pre><code><?php wp_list_bookmarks('category=23'); ?>
<?php blogroll_random_category(5, 'exclude_category=23'); ?><h3>1.0</h3>* The first version.<h3>1.5</h3>* Whereas this plugin previously altered the behavior of wp_list_bookmarks in a
</code></pre>
<p>way that made it impossible to see the whole blogroll. Now it uses a separate<br />
  function call so that in some instances you can see random categories, but in<br />
  others you can see the whole blogroll.<br />
* Now possible to return multiple random categories without separate function<br />
  calls, thus eliminiating the possibility that two of the random categories<br />
  will be the same.</p>
<h3>1.5.1</h3>
<ul>
<li>The leading closing li tag was not actually getting trimmed off due to<br />
bad copying and pasting. That has been resolved.</li>
</ul>
<h3>A personal request</h3>
<p>If you use/enjoy this plugin, I’d love to hear from you. You’re under no<br />
obligation, but I’d enjoy knowing that somebody out there is enjoying my work.<br />
Promptly returning e-mail is not my strong suit, so you may never get the<br />
courtesy of a reply, but you can rest assured that I appreciated your effort.</p>
<p>I can be reached at kj@kjcoop.com.</p>


Random Blogroll Category

This plug in will select one or more random blogroll categories to show.

Guido

<h4>About</h4>
<p>With this lightweight plugin you can display a set of links from the Link Manager.</p>
<p>The Link Manager is part of WordPress but disabled by default. This plugin will activate it again.</p>
<p>To display your link list you can use a block, a shortcode or a widget.</p>
<p>You can customize your link list with attributes.</p>
<p>With this plugin you can also create a blogroll or link portal in the same way as a link list.</p>
<h4>How to use</h4>
<p>After installation go to menu item “Links”. You can add your categories and links here. Links must be assigned to a category.</p>
<p>Add the VS Link Manager block or the shortcode <code>[links]</code> to a page to display your link list.</p>
<p>Or go to Appearance > Widgets and use the VS Link Manager widget.</p>
<p>Default settings categories:</p>
<ul>
<li>4 columns when using block or shortode</li>
<li>1 column when using widget</li>
<li>Order by name</li>
<li>Ascending order (A-Z)</li>
<li>Empty categories are hidden</li>
</ul>
<p>Default settings links:</p>
<ul>
<li>Order by name</li>
<li>Ascending order (A-Z)</li>
<li>All links are displayed</li>
</ul>
<p>You can customize your link list with attributes.</p>
<h4>Attributes</h4>
<p>You can customize your link list by adding attributes to the block, the shortcode or the widget.</p>
<ul>
<li>Add custom CSS class to link list: <code>class="your-class-name"</code></li>
<li>Change the number of columns: <code>columns="3"</code></li>
<li>Disable the columns: <code>columns="0"</code></li>
<li>Include certain categories: <code>include="1,3,5"</code></li>
<li>Exclude certain categories: <code>exclude="8,10,12"</code></li>
<li>Display empty categories too: <code>hide_empty="0"</code></li>
<li>Display category description: <code>category_description="true"</code></li>
<li>Change the number of links per category: <code>links_per_category="5"</code></li>
<li>Reverse the order of links: <code>order="DESC"</code></li>
<li>Display links by ID: <code>orderby="ID"</code></li>
<li>Display links in random order: <code>orderby="rand"</code></li>
<li>Hide link title: <code>hide_link_title="true"</code></li>
<li>Hide link description: <code>hide_link_description="true"</code></li>
<li>Change feed label: <code>feed_label="your label"</code></li>
<li>Change the “no categories are found” text: <code>no_categories_text="your text"</code></li>
</ul>
<p>Example: <code>[links include="1,3,5" category_description="true" links_per_category="5"]</code></p>
<p>When using the block or the widget, don’t add the main shortcode tag or the brackets.</p>
<p>Example: <code>include="1,3,5" category_description="true" links_per_category="5"</code></p>
<p>With the columns attribute you can set the number of columns between 1 and 4.</p>
<p>The link list becomes 2 columns in small screens (except when number of columns is set to 1).</p>
<p>You can also disable the columns. This can be handy if you only want to use your own styling.</p>
<p>The columns attribute will be ignored when using the block or widget. Because you can set the columns via the block or widget settings.</p>
<p>With the hide link title attribute you can hide the link title if the link has an image assigned to it. This way you can display the link image only, instead of both.</p>
<h4>Widget</h4>
<p>This plugin activates the Links widget again. Because this widget is part of WordPress, plugin has no control over it.</p>
<p>You can use the VS Link Manager widget instead.</p>
<h4>Have a question?</h4>
<p>Please take a look at the FAQ section.</p>
<h4>Translation</h4>
<p>Translations are not included, but the plugin supports WordPress language packs.</p>
<p>More <a href="https://translate.wordpress.org/projects/wp-plugins/very-simple-link-manager" rel="nofollow ugc">translations</a> are very welcome!</p>
<p>The translation folder inside this plugin is redundant, but kept for reference.</p>
<h4>Credits</h4>
<p>Without help and support from the WordPress community I was not able to develop this plugin, so thank you!</p>


VS Link Manager

With this lightweight plugin you can display a set of links from the Link Manager.

Random Blogroll Category vs VS Link Manager