Easily create, output, and manage post series with the "course" taxonomy.
Simple Course Creator lets you group WordPress posts into courses using a custom taxonomy, then automatically displays a linked list of all posts in the same course within each post’s content.
Features
- Create unlimited courses from the Posts menu — just like categories and tags
- Assign posts to a course from the edit post screen or the manage posts screen
- Display the course listing above content, below, or both
- Choose between numbered list, bullet list, or no list indicator
- Sort the listing by date, title, author, last modified, comment count, or random
- Style the current post in the listing as bold, italic, or strikethrough
- Optionally collapse the listing behind a toggle link (JavaScript)
Post Meta
Show author and publish date beneath each item in the course listing. Both are enabled by default and can be toggled from the settings page.
Front Display
On the blog home, archive pages, and search results, indicate that a post belongs to a course. Enabled by default and can be toggled from the settings page.
Customization
Style the course box, post meta output, and front display indicator directly from the WordPress Customizer — no custom CSS required. For deeper customization, override the plugin’s template files in your active theme.
Create a directory called scc_templates in the root of your active theme and copy any files from the plugin’s includes/scc_templates/ directory into it. Theme files take priority over plugin files.
Screenshots
Settings page with display, post meta, and front display options
Create and manage courses from Posts > Courses
Assign a post to a course from the block editor sidebar
Filter and manage posts by course from the manage posts screen
Customize the course box, post meta, and front display styles in the Customizer
Course listing collapsed
Course listing expanded with author and date post meta
Can a post be assigned to more than one course?
No. A post should only be assigned to one course. The purpose of the plugin is to display all other posts in the same course as the one being viewed, so a single course assignment is required for that to work correctly.
Can I customize the course listing output?
Yes, several ways.
Hooks — Add actions in your theme’s functions.php to insert content at specific points in the output. Available hooks, in order of appearance:
scc_before_containerscc_container_topscc_below_titlescc_below_descriptionscc_before_togglescc_after_togglescc_above_listscc_before_list_item — receives $post_idscc_after_list_item — receives $post_idscc_below_listscc_container_bottomscc_after_container
The toggle link text is filterable via the course_toggle filter (default: “full course”).
The front display leading and trailing text are filterable via course_leading_text and course_trailing_text.
The post meta label text is filterable via written_by and written_on.
Template override — Create an scc_templates/ directory in your active theme and copy any files from includes/scc_templates/ into it. Your theme versions will take priority.
Customizer — Use the Simple Course Creator Design section in Appearance > Customize to adjust colors, borders, padding, and typography for all three output components.
Custom CSS — Write CSS in your theme targeting #scc-wrap, .scc-post-meta, and .scc-front-display.
Can I add my own styles to the Customizer output?
Yes. The scc_add_to_styles action fires inside the generated <style> block. Hook into it to append additional CSS without opening a new style tag.
ChangeLog
2.0.0
- Consolidated: SCC Customizer, SCC Front Display, and SCC Post Meta are now built into this plugin
- Added: Post Meta settings (show/hide author and date) on the settings page
- Added: Front Display toggle on the settings page
- Added: Unified Customizer section — all settings stored in a single scc_customizer option, independent of the active theme
- Added: Upgrade routine to migrate all settings from the former add-on plugins
- Added: Auto-deactivation of retired add-on plugins (SCC Customizer, SCC Front Display, SCC Post Meta) with admin notice on first admin load after upgrade
- Changed: All plugin option keys prefixed with scc_ (course_display_settings → scc_display_settings, taxonomy_{id} → scc_term_{id})
- Fixed: Customizer integer settings were stored as theme_mods — now stored as options so they persist across theme switches
- Fixed: Missing nonce verification and input sanitization on term meta save
- Fixed: Unescaped output throughout the frontend template and display classes
- Fixed: Missing sanitize_callback on all Customizer color settings
- Fixed: Whitelist validation on all settings page select fields
- Fixed: Incorrect WP_Query orderby value (‘random’ → ‘rand’)
- Fixed: Duplicate element ID on current post style select field
- Fixed: Logic bug in columns() causing undefined variable on first load
- Updated: Requires at least WordPress 5.0, PHP 7.4
1.0.7
- Added: Setting for ordering the post listing using the “order” parameter (ascending or descending)
- Removed: “scc_order” filter, replaced by the above setting
- Tweaked: Default border and padding on the post listing display
1.0.6
- Added: Setting for ordering the post listing using the “orderby” parameter
- Added: “scc_order” filter to control ascending or descending order
- Fixed: PHP notices
- Fixed: Database settings value inconsistencies
1.0.5
1.0.4
- Tweaked: Improved translation strings and updated .pot file
1.0.3
- Added: Option to select the current post text style (bold, strikethrough, or italic)
- Removed: Current post default bold font weight
1.0.2
- Fixed: PHP warnings from settings sanitization
1.0.1
- Added: Disable JavaScript setting to show the course listing without a toggle
1.0.0
