Custom Query Shortcode vs Sort Query Posts

This plugin gives you [query] shortcode which enables you to query and output any posts filtered by specific attributes. Usage You can use most parameters supported by WP_Query class to filter the posts; you can query for specific post types, categories, tags, authors, etc. Other supported parameters Aside from WP_Query parameters, the shortcode also supports the following additional parameters: featured: to query for sticky posts which by default are excluded from the query. thumbnail_size: to specify the size of the {THUMBNAIL} images. You can use built-in image sizes or custom ones you’ve defined. content_limit: to limit the number of words of the {CONTENT} var; by default it’s “0” which means it outputs the whole content. posts_separator: text to display between individual posts. lens: custom output template – see description below. twig_template: output template using Twig templating engine – requires the Timber library. Formatting the output You can define how you want to format the output inline within an opening [query] and closing [/query] tag. Available keywords are: TITLE, CONTENT, AUTHOR, AUTHOR_URL, DATE, THUMBNAIL, CONTENT, COMMENT_COUNT. The following example will display the latest 5 posts from the category with the ID of 3, showing a post title and comment count, with a link to the post: [query posts_per_page=”5″ cat=”3″] {TITLE} ({COMMENT_COUNT}) [/query] Grid display With the “cols” parameter you can display the output in a grid. [query posts_per_page=”3″ cols=”3″] {THUMBNAIL} {TITLE} {CONTENT} [/query] will display the latest 3 posts in the defined template, in 3 columns. The plugin will automatically divide the grid into rows based upon the ‘posts_per_page’ option, divided by the ‘cols’ option. Lenses (output templates) With the “lens” parameter you can customize the display of the query results using a template. Some basic lenses/templates are provided: ul: unordered list of linked post titles. ul-title-date: same as ‘ul’, but also displays the posted date. article-excerpt: series of articles, with a header containing the linked post title, and the excerpt. article-excerpt-date: same as ‘article-excerpt’, but also displays the posted date. cards: displays the post thumb above the header with linked post title, followed by the excerpt. Bootstrap lenses Some pre-defined lenses/templates are provided which use JavaScript Components from the Bootstrap CSS framework. The generated markup is compliant with the 5.x version of Bootstrap. This feature relies on Bootstrap library to be already loaded on the page, the plugin does not include it. If you’re using a Bootstrap-based theme, this should work; otherwise you can use the Bootstrap plugin). Tabs This will show the latest 3 posts in a tabbed widget. [query posts_per_page=”3″ lens=”tabs”] Accordion This will create an accordion widget of all our posts from the “faq” post type. [query posts_per_page=”0″ post_type=”faq” lens=”accordion”] Carousel This creates a carousel of latest five featured posts: [query posts_per_page=”5″ featured=”true” lens=”carousel”] Custom Lenses/templates You can create your own custom templates and put them into one of these pre-defined folder names within your theme: ‘query-shortcode-templates’ ‘partials/query-shortcode-lenses/’ ‘html/lenses/’ Or simply specify your own subfolder in the ‘lens’ parameter: [query lens=”folder/template-name”] Twig Template Support Starting with version 0.4, you can use Twig templates for your output. Support for Twig is provided by the Timber library. This requires that Timber 2.x be installed as a Composer dependency. To use a Twig template for your query output, simply use the 'twig_template' parameter instead of the 'lens' parameter, and provide the path to your template. By default, Timber looks within the views folder in your active theme. You can change the default template location in Timber. Examples: [query twig_template="template-name.twig"] [query twig_template="folder/template-name.twig"]

A really simple and lightweight plugin (73 lines of code – comments included) to sort posts on-the-fly without making a new query to the database (improves performance). Features: Supports all order_by and order values of the query_posts function except meta_value and meta_value_num (which require a database query). Supports changing the order of all types of posts, including custom post type posts and custom post type “archive” posts. Documentation This plugin adds the function sort_query_posts_by(string $order_by [, string $order]) to the global context. The second $order parameter is optional. Its default value is asc (ascending order). Call this function before the loop to change how posts are ordered. After calling this function you can show the posts as you normally would. You can sort posts by: author comment_count date id menu_order modified parent title This is specially useful in two cases: When you need to reorder the posts returned by the query that WordPress creates from your given URL. Custom post type “archive” posts are a great example of this case. When you need the posts returned by your customized query (e.g. query_posts()) to be shown more than once on the same page and ordered differently. Examples: The example above will sort posts by their title in descending order without making a new query to the database. This way sorting is performance friendly. The example above will sort posts by their ID in ascending order. The example above will sort posts randomly. When sorting randomly $order is ignored. Plugin developed by Túbal Martín at www.margenn.com.