Hi there,
I’ve created a custom post type, and I would like its archive page to display posts organised by date (using the ACF Datepicker field, not the date the post was created).
I would like to achieve this with a custom plugin, as I want the posts to remain organised by date even when the theme is changed.
I don’t have tons of experience with this so the only solution I know of is to use pre_get_posts. This is what I have in my custom plugin:
function mycustomposttype_pre_get_posts( $query ) {
if( is_admin() ) {
return $query;
}
if( isset($query->query_vars['post_type']) && $query->query_vars['post_type'] == 'mycustomposttype' ) {
$query->set('orderby', 'meta_value');
$query->set('meta_key', 'date');
$query->set('order', 'DESC');
}
return $query;
}
add_action('pre_get_posts', 'mycustomposttype_pre_get_posts');
Currently, the archive page for the custom post type is returning ‘Posts Not Found’. Do you know why this might be? Is there another approach I should be taking with this? I feel organising posts with the Datepicker field should be fairly straightforward, but I must be missing something.
Thank you in advance for any help you can provide!
It’s may be just a matter of specifying the post type in the Query.
It sounds like you know this, but remember… the below code naturally has values that need to be replaced:
a) ‘my_custom_post_type’ = the ‘slug’ of your post type (3 places… plus the function name twice if desired)
b) ‘date’ = the ‘name’ of your ACF Date field (1 place)
<?php
function mycustomposttype_pre_get_posts() {
if ( is_admin() ) { return $query; }
if ( is_post_type_archive( 'my_custom_post_type' ) && !empty( $query->query['post_type'] == 'my_custom_post_type' ) {
$query->set( 'post_type', 'my_custom_post_type' );
$query->set( 'meta_key', 'date' );
$query->set( 'orderby', 'meta_value_num' );
$query->set( 'order', 'DESC' );
}
return $query;
}
add_action('pre_get_posts','mycustomposttype_pre_get_posts');
?>
You may need to adjust ‘orderby’. I got ‘num’ from the ACF docs about querying date fields.
Hi Keith,
Thank you for your reply and for helping me out – I really appreciate it
Unfortunately the syntax within your suggested code is throwing errors for me, and I’m not sure why – do you perhaps have any ideas?
Thank you!
Hi Keith, I’m getting ‘Parse error: syntax error’ for the curly bracket at the end of this line:
if ( is_post_type_archive( 'my_custom_post_type' ) && !empty( $query->query['post_type'] == 'my_custom_post_type' ) {
Nothing I have tried seems to fix the issue. Thank you!
ahhh… silly mistake on my part… the “if” is missing the closing bracket… sorry about that.
if ( is_post_type_archive( 'my_custom_post_type' ) && !empty( $query->query['post_type'] == 'my_custom_post_type' ) ) {
No problem Keith, thank you very much for looking into that. Unfortunately this solution doesn’t seem to have worked – it hasn’t changed the sorting of the posts at all, so the problem must be elsewhere.
Again, I do appreciate your help! 🙂
