Custom Post List filtered by ACF criteria

• kabrio

• July 6, 2015 at 9:45 pm

I am trying to get a loop to work for a custom post type but filtered according to certain criteria / custom fields.

I have custom post type using ACF called “feature”. I want to filter by 3 fields, firstly by a field called “sticky” – this is either a 1 or a 0 (but could be changed if necessary). Then I want to filter by published date – the “sticky” items would also hopefully be filtered by date then the non-sticky items would follow in descending date order.

I also have a 3rd field called “hidden” which is another 1 or 0 (if it has been switched on (1) then I don’t want to grab that post).

I have the basic loop code below – but whenever I try to add another field based on some of the code I have found elsewhere nothing seems to change or work.

The additional criteria that I need is to have pagination.

What can I add to the argument list below to get it to filter and retrieve the posts in in the order I want?

Thanks in advance for any help.

$paged = ( get_query_var( 'page' ) ) ? get_query_var( 'page' ) : 1;	
$args = array(
	'paged' => $paged,
	'post_type'		=> 'feature',
	'posts_per_page'	=> 5,
	'orderby' => 'published',                            
	'order' => 'DESC'
);

$wp_query = new WP_query();
$wp_query->query($args);
if ( $wp_query->have_posts() ) {
	// loop goes here
} else {
	// no posts found
}

• magicstick

• July 6, 2015 at 11:49 pm

You have to have your order by argument as an array:

$q = new WP_Query( array( 'orderby' => array( 'sticky' => 'DESC', 'published' => 'ASC' , 'hidden' => 'ASC' ) ) );

Need to be careful how you are calling these keys in though. Remember you need

'meta_key' => 'start_date', argument in there too.

I’ve never tried it will muliple custom fields but i’m guessing you will have to have the matching keys as an array also.

• magicstick

• July 6, 2015 at 11:50 pm

Just googled it. Appears to be a solution here:

https://wordpress.org/support/topic/orderby-multiple-meta_key

• kabrio

• July 7, 2015 at 12:30 pm

Hi magicstick

Thanks for your quick reply.

I gave your idea a go but I am not sure how to incorporate the meta_key “start_date” into the equation – could you elaborate. Perhaps I don’t need it as I am not using an ACF start date but the original “published” date.

I have tried to use the following but with no success (I simplified the fields I am using):

$args = array(
   'paged' => $paged,
   'post_type' => 'feature',
   'orderby' => 'meta_value_num',
   'meta_query' => array(
   'relation' => 'AND',
   array( 'orderby' => array( 'published' => 'DESC' , 'hide_from_archive' !=   '1' ))
   )
);			
$wp_query = new WP_query();
$wp_query->query($args);

Thanks again for your advice.

• kabrio

• July 8, 2015 at 1:08 am

I believe I have managed to get it to almost work but with just the two fields previous mentioned – I still am not sure how to get the third field (“sticky”) into the argument list – any further help is much appreciated.

Thanks.

$args = array(
	'paged' => $paged,
	'post_type' => 'feature',
	'orderby' => 'published',
	'order' => 'DESC',
	'posts_per_page' => 5,
	'meta_query' => array(
	   array(
		   'key' => 'hide_from_archive',
		   'value' => array('0'),
		   'compare' => 'IN',
	   )
	)
);

• John Huebner

• July 31, 2015 at 9:28 am

There was an update in WP 4.2 that will allow you to order posts by multiple meta fields. It’s detailed here: https://make.wordpress.org/core/2015/03/30/query-improvements-in-wp-4-2-orderby-and-meta_query/