Description

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
Front display text on a single post, showing which course(s) it belongs to

Installation

Upload simple-course-creator to the /wp-content/plugins/ directory
Activate the plugin through the Plugins menu in WordPress
Create courses under Posts > Courses
Assign posts to a course from the edit post screen or the manage posts screen
Optionally configure display settings under Settings > Course Settings

Upgrading from v1.x with add-on plugins

If you were using the separate SCC Customizer, SCC Front Display, or SCC Post Meta plugins, deactivate and delete them after updating to v2.0.0. All functionality is now built into this plugin. Your existing Customizer settings and display preferences carry over automatically.

FAQ

Can a post be assigned to more than one course?

Yes. If a post belongs to multiple courses, a separate course listing is displayed for each one. The position setting (above, below, both) applies to all listings.

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_container
scc_container_top
scc_below_title
scc_below_description
scc_before_toggle
scc_after_toggle
scc_above_list
scc_before_list_item — receives $post_id
scc_after_list_item — receives $post_id
scc_below_list
scc_container_bottom
scc_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-post-list, .scc-post-meta, and .scc-front-display. Each listing has a data-course-id attribute if you need to target a specific course box ([data-course-id="5"]). When a post belongs to multiple courses, each listing also carries the scc-multiple-courses class and all listings are wrapped in a .scc-course-group container.

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.

Reviews

There are no reviews for this plugin.

Contributors & Developers

“Simple Course Creator” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.

Sean Davis

Translate “Simple Course Creator” into your language.

Interested in development?

Browse the code, check out the SVN repository, or subscribe to the development log by RSS.

Changelog

2.1.0

Added: Multiple course support — a post can now belong to more than one course; a separate listing is rendered for each
Added: scc_post_types filter — register the course taxonomy on custom post types without touching the plugin
Added: scc-single-course class on course boxes that belong to a single-course post; scc-multiple-courses class on boxes that belong to a multi-course post
Added: .scc-course-group wrapper around all listings when a post belongs to more than one course
Added: Customizer “Bottom Margin” control for the course box; applies to both standalone boxes and the group wrapper
Changed: Customizer reorganized into a panel with three sections — Course Box, Post Meta, and Front Display
Changed: Course listing container changed from #scc-wrap to .scc-post-list (breaking change — update any custom CSS targeting #scc-wrap)
Changed: Each listing carries a data-course-id="{term_id}" attribute for targeting individual courses with CSS ([data-course-id="5"])
Changed: scc.css restructured as a self-documenting reference — every selector the plugin outputs is listed with plain-language comments
Fixed: Duplicate element ID when display_position was set to “both” — IDs are not used on the container element
Fixed: Front display sentence grammar — “course.” vs. “courses.” now matches the actual count
Fixed: JS toggle addClass/removeClass was targeting all toggle links on the page instead of only the clicked one
Fixed: is_single() replaced with is_singular() throughout so the plugin works correctly on custom post type singular views
Fixed: Toggle element changed from <a href="#"> to <button type="button"> for correct semantics and accessibility; CSS reset in scc.css neutralizes theme button styles
Fixed: return false in toggle JS replaced with e.preventDefault() — avoids unintended stopPropagation() side effect
Changed: Toggle button now displays a chevron indicator (▾) that rotates when the list is open; style or remove via .scc-toggle-post-list::after
Changed: scc-output.php and scc-post-listing.js fully documented — hook reference, template variables, inline comments explaining each conditional block

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

Tweaked: Code formatting

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

First stable release