Problem: What is the difference between Views and WP Archives?
Solution:
The main difference between Views and WP Archives is that a View can be placed in any arbitrary location on your site. It can be placed in a post, or in a Page, or in a template, or in an archive, etc. WP Archives cannot be placed in arbitrary locations, they are assigned to specific archive URLs that are designated automatically by WordPress. By default, WordPress creates archive URLs that include lists of posts. Archives are generated and displayed by WordPress automatically for post types, taxonomy terms, author archives, post archives by year/month/date, etc. WordPress automatically displays those archives for you at a standardized URL.
A Toolset WordPress Archive must be displayed at a URL designated by WordPress for displaying an archive.
There are a few technical differences between WP Archives and Views as well. These two differences are probably the most important:
- WP Archives are filtered automatically depending on the type of archive. For example, a taxonomy WP Archive for a custom taxonomy term "book" will be filtered by the term "book" automatically, you do not need to add such a taxonomy term filter to the WP Archive. All the posts displayed in that archive will have the term "book" applied. However, if you create a View of the same post type and place it inside the term WP Archive, the View results will not be automatically filtered by the "book" term. All posts would be displayed in that View, and you would have to add that term filter manually to only show posts with the term "book" in the View results.
- Distance filters are not currently available for WP Archives. Distance filters only work in Views that display posts of some type
Relevant Documentation:
https://toolset.com/glossary/archive/
