Footnotes for WordPress

Footnotes for WordPress is a simple plugin designed with a simple aim in mind: to make it dead-easy to include decently-formatted footnotes in posts and pages on your WordPress blog.

The syntax is roughly based on the common MediaWiki syntax for footnotes, but uses the WordPress shortcode conventions. So, to include a footnote with the text ”Text,” you use:

And that’s all you need to do. When you add a footnote, Footnotes for WordPress will create a note marker at the point that the foonote appears in the text, and includes the text of the footnote in a styled list of notes down the page. When a reader clicks on the link in a JavaScript-enabled browser, a script included with the plugin will create a small bubble inline in the text, which pops up over the footnote marker for easy reading without losing their place. In non-JavaScript-enabled contexts, clicking on the footnote marker jumps down the page to the text of the note.

The jump is based on an unique anchor which the plugin can automatically generate for you. However, if you want to create a specific ID of your own for the footnote, you can do so using the name="..." attribute:

If you define an ID for a footnote, you can also refer back to the same footnote later on in the document, using the [backref name="..."] shortcode.

Footnotes are numbered, beginning at 1. However, you can change the numbering if you so desire using the number="..." attribute. For example, I often use this when quoting from a book that contains footnotes or endnotes, in order to represent the notes used by the original text.

You can change the text that is displayed in the note’s superscripted link from the note’s number to any text or symbol that you choose using the superscript="..." attribute. For example, to use an asterisk instead of the note number:

By default, the list of footnotes appears at the bottom of the post. However, if you wish them to appear somewhere above the bottom of the post, for formatting or other reasons, you can do so using the [references/] shortcode:

Which will cause the two footnotes to appear beneath the second paragraph but above the ”See also:” text.

Usage

• To create a footnote, use [ref]...[/ref] to wrap the text of your note.

  Example: This is footnoted.[ref]This is the text of the of the footnote.[/ref]

• Normally footnotes use numbered superscripts to indicate the footnote, beginning with 1. You can choose to use symbols instead, like *, **, †, etc. To use custom text for a footnote’s superscript, use [ref superscript="*"]...[/ref], and replace the asterisk with whatever symbol or text you want to use.

• Normally footnotes begin at 1 and count up towards infinity. If you want to use numbered subscripts but need to reset the number they count from, use the number attribute. For example, if you want the current subscript to be numbered 128, and for subsequent subscripts to be numbered 129, 130, etc., use: [ref number=”128″]…[/ref].

• To create a footnote with a specific unique ID, instead of the one that the plugin will automatically generate for you, use [ref name="..."]...[/ref]

  Example: This is footnoted.[ref name="my-unique-id"]This is the note text.[/ref]

• If you define an ID for a footnote, you can also refer back to the same footnote later on in the document, using the [backref name="..."] shortcode.

  This is footnoted.[ref name=”source1″]Source 1[/ref]

  So is this.[ref name=”source2″]Source[/ref]

  And this one comes from the same source as the first.[backref name=”source1″]

• To force the plugin to display notes at a different location instead of at the bottom of the post, use [references/]

  Example:

  This is footnoted.[ref]Text[/ref]

  As are some[ref]Text[/ref] other things.

  [references/]

  See also: Endnotes.

• If you wish to change how footnotes are styled, you can alter them in your WordPress theme stylesheet, or using JavaScript. The default elements and classes are <a class="footnoted"> for superscript links to footnotes,

<

ol class=”footnotes”> for the list of references, and

• Alternatively, if you want to change the CSS class which is applied to to the footnotes list, you can do so using the class parameter on [references/]:

  This is a test.[ref]Lewis (2000).[/ref] <h3>Notes</h3> [references class="compact" /]

  … which will produce the following HTML:

  <p>This is a test.<sup>[<a href="#test-n-1" class="footnoted" id="to-test-n-1">1</a>]</sup></p> <h3>Notes</h3> <ol class="compact"> <li class="footnote" id="test-n-1"><strong><sup>[1]</sup></strong> Lewis (2000). <a class="note-return" href="#to-test-n-1">↩</a></li ></ol>

  Since the default styling is based on children of ol.footnotes, those styles will not apply, and you can apply whatever styles you wish to the class that you’ve created.

  Changes from version 2010.0309 to version 2010.0822

• Added [backref name="..." /] shortcode allowing you to refer back to a note with an established name

• Eliminated a bug which caused duplicate IDs if you tried to set up multiple sections of footnotes in the same post using repeated [references/] codes.

• Added [references class="foo" /] syntax, allowing user to supply their own class for CSS re-styling purposes.

• Tested for and verified compatibility up to WordPress 3.0.1 and WordPress trunk.

Changes from version 2010.0306 to version 2010.0309

• Eliminates a harmless but potentially annoying source of ”Missing argument” warnings from PHP