Simple Index

The most basic type of index you can create is a simple listing of all the posts in your blog, as shown in the sample index below.  To do the same for your blog, just follow these few instructions and you will be done in no time:

1. Login to your blog and go to the Tools » AZIndex settings page. This is where a list of your indexes will appear, but it will be blank, for now.  (Note: for versions older than WordPress 2.7, the settings page can be found under Manage » AZIndex)
2. Click the (add new) link and you will be taken to the Add Index page where you specify the settings for your first index.
3. Enter the name of your index in the Index name text box.
4. And that’s it!  Ignore all the other options for now, we’ll get back to those later.  Scroll to the bottom of the page and click the Add Index button.  You have just created your first index.

Now, you’re probably wondering how to find this brand-spanking new index.  Well, when you add an index, the plugin creates a new blog page with same name as you gave the index.  Click on the Pages link and you will see a new, unpublished page with that name as its title in the list of pages.  Click on the title to edit it, and all you’ll find in the page is something like this:

[az-index id=”1″ escape=”true”]

The string of characters inside the square brackets is called a WordPress shortcode and tells AZIndex to insert the index into the page at this point.  Notice that the id is “1” — this matches the id of the index you created.  If you like, you can copy this shortcode into any other page or post in your blog and the same index will show up there too, even if you have deleted the original page created by the plugin.

You can also add your own content to the page, before or after the index shortcode (just like I did on the page you are reading), and to see the finished article, click the Preview button and take a look.  When you are satisfied with the results, simply publish the page and you will have an alphabetical index of your blog posts for your readers to enjoy.

Once your index is up and running, it will look after itself.  The plugin will update the contents of the index whenever you add new posts, delete old ones, or even rename a post title.  AZIndex also works with the caching plugin, WP Super Cache, so your index pages should never be out-of-date.

Now, of course, this basic index is pretty bland and basic, but the rest of examples in this section show you how the various options in the index’s settings page can liven things up a bit, as well as making the index easier to use.

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