WB CPT & Taxonomy Order

Drag-and-drop ordering for any custom post type and its taxonomy terms — filter by taxonomy first, so you only sort the items you care about.

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Why this plugin?

Most "post order" plugins force you to drag through thousands of posts in a single flat list. WB CPT & Taxonomy Order takes a smarter approach:

Pick a taxonomy term first → only the posts in that term show up → drag a manageable list.

Built originally for documentation sites where you want to order articles inside a category — but works for any custom post type and any public taxonomy on your site.

Features

• 📦 Order any public CPT — products, docs, portfolio, recipes, events… anything public => true
• 🏷️ Taxonomy-scoped post ordering — pick a term, drag only its posts (no infinite-scroll pain)
• 🌳 Order taxonomy terms — both parent terms and children, hierarchical or flat
• ⚡ Auto-save on drop — debounced AJAX, no "Save" button needed
• 🎯 Frontend ordering — pre_get_posts filter applies your custom order on the front end (toggleable)
• 🔌 REST API — POST /wp-json/wb-cpt-order/v1/term-order and /term-order/bulk for programmatic ordering
• 🪝 Developer filters — wb_cpto_supported_post_types, wb_cpto_enabled_term_taxonomies
• 🌐 Translation-ready — text domain wb-cpt-taxonomy-order
• 📱 Responsive admin UI — drag works on touch devices too

How it works

Thing being ordered	Storage	Why
Posts	wp_posts.menu_order column	Native WP field — works with orderby => 'menu_order' everywhere
Terms	term_order term meta	Sorted post-query so ordering survives WP's lack of native term order

Installation

From GitHub

cd wp-content/plugins/
git clone https://github.com/vapvarun/wb-cpt-taxonomy-order.git

Then activate in Plugins → Installed Plugins.

Manual

1. Download the ZIP from the releases page
2. Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin
3. Activate

Usage

After activation, a new WB CPT Order menu appears in the admin sidebar with three pages:

1. Order Posts

Post Type → Taxonomy → Parent Term → Child Term → drag posts

Drag the list to reorder. Saves automatically.

2. Order Terms

Post Type → Taxonomy → Children-of-X (or all parents) → drag terms

Reorder taxonomy terms for menus, archive pages, and any get_terms() call.

3. Settings

• Enable Frontend Ordering — toggle whether pre_get_posts and get_terms filters apply your order to the front end
• Enabled Post Types — choose which CPTs are sortable (defaults to all public non-builtin types)

Screenshots

Screen	What you see
Order Posts	Filter dropdowns at top, sortable list of posts in selected term, status badges (Published/Draft/Pending), Edit links
Order Terms	Filter dropdowns, sortable term list with post counts
Settings	Toggle frontend ordering + CPT checkboxes

REST API

Single term

curl -X POST https://example.com/wp-json/wb-cpt-order/v1/term-order \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "X-WP-Nonce: <nonce>" \
  -d '{"term_id": 42, "order": 3, "taxonomy": "product_cat"}'

Bulk

curl -X POST https://example.com/wp-json/wb-cpt-order/v1/term-order/bulk \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "X-WP-Nonce: <nonce>" \
  -d '{"taxonomy": "product_cat", "orders": [{"term_id": 42, "order": 1}, {"term_id": 43, "order": 2}]}'

Both endpoints require the manage_categories capability.

Filters & hooks

// Restrict which CPTs the plugin manages.
add_filter( 'wb_cpto_supported_post_types', function( $post_types ) {
    unset( $post_types['attachment'] );
    return $post_types;
} );

// Limit which taxonomies get auto-sorted on the frontend.
add_filter( 'wb_cpto_enabled_term_taxonomies', function( $taxonomies ) {
    return array( 'product_cat', 'doc_category' );
} );

Requirements

• WordPress 5.0+
• PHP 7.4+

FAQ

Q. Will it conflict with WooCommerce / Yoast / other "order" plugins? A. The plugin uses native menu_order for posts and a dedicated term_order meta for terms, so it plays nicely with WooCommerce's own product sorting, ACF, Yoast, etc. If multiple plugins try to set pre_get_posts orderby, the later filter wins — disable "Frontend Ordering" in Settings if you want manual control.

Q. Why a custom term meta instead of a term_order column? A. WordPress doesn't ship a native term_order column anymore (it was removed years ago). Term meta works the same, doesn't require schema changes, and is portable across hosts.

Q. Does this work with Gutenberg / FSE block themes? A. Yes. The plugin doesn't touch the editor — it operates at the query layer (pre_get_posts, get_terms), so any block theme, query loop, or core block respects the order automatically.

Q. Will it slow down my site? A. The post ordering uses a native database column (menu_order) — zero overhead. Term ordering does an in-memory sort after get_terms returns results, which is negligible for typical taxonomy sizes (<500 terms).

Changelog

See CHANGELOG.md.

Contributing

PRs welcome. Please:

1. Fork the repo
2. Branch from main
3. Match the existing WordPress Coding Standards (run phpcs --standard=WordPress)
4. Open a PR with a clear description of what changed and why

License

GPL-2.0-or-later. See LICENSE.

Credits

Built by Varun Dubey at Wbcom Designs.