Setting up front end filtering and sorting by custom fields

• lewmaster

• January 24, 2014 at 4:56 am

Hi, I’m working on a site here: http://tlc.mainteractivegroup.com/find-my-apartment/

I need to set up some filtering and sorting. The SELECT boxes need to be filters based on custom field input. I still have to tweak how the data is input, but you should get the idea.

The column headings need to sort ASC/DSC by that column when clicked.

I tried searching for over an hour on google yesterday and most of the info was for setting up column sorting on the WP-Admin side.

If anyone can help me get pointed in the right direction as to how to do both the filtering and sorting by custom field values, I would be forever grateful.

Thanks!

• James

• January 24, 2014 at 2:22 pm

Hi there,

I would start by checking out this tutorial => http://www.advancedcustomfields.com/resources/tutorials/creating-wp-archive-custom-field-filter/

It shows you how to setup a filter based on a custom field that you should be able to adapt to your needs.

• lewmaster

• February 13, 2014 at 8:53 am

Ok so I went through that tutorial – bedrooms was already one of the fields I need to sort by, so I thought it would be easy – however, I am having a lot of trouble with this still.

This is the code I put in my functions file:

add_action('pre_get_posts', 'my_pre_get_posts');
 
function my_pre_get_posts( $query ) {

    if( is_admin() ) { return; }
 
    $meta_query = $query->get('meta_query'); // get original meta query
    
    
    // validate type
    if( empty($_GET['bedrooms']) )
    {
	    return;
    }
    
    
    // get types as an array
    // - use explode to get an array of values from type=a|b|c
    $bedrooms = explode('|', $_GET['bedrooms']);
    
    
    // set compare for the meta_query
    // - http://codex.wordpress.org/Class_Reference/WP_Query
    $meta_query['relation'] = 'OR';
    
    
    foreach( $bedrooms as $bedroom )
    {
	    $meta_query[] = array(
            'key'       => 'bedrooms',
            'value'     => '"' . $bedroom . '"',
            'compare'   => 'LIKE',
        );
    }
	
	
    $query->set('meta_query', $meta_query); // update the meta query args
    
    return; // always return
}

This is the code I have on the page I want to have filtering:

<div id="search-houses">
<?php 
 
	$field = get_field_object('bedrooms');
	$values = explode(',', $_GET['bedrooms']);
 
	?>
	<ul>
		<?php foreach( $field['choices'] as $choice_value => $choice_label ): ?>
			<li>
				<input type="checkbox" value="<?php echo $choice_value; ?>" <?php if( in_array($choice_value, $values) ): ?>checked="checked"<?php endif; ?> /> <?php echo $choice_label; ?></li>
			</li>
		<?php endforeach; ?>
	</ul>
</div>
<script type="text/javascript">
(function($) {
 
	$('#search-houses').on('change', 'input[type="checkbox"]', function(){
 
		// vars
		var $ul = $(this).closest('ul'),
			vals = [];
 
		$ul.find('input:checked').each(function(){
 
			vals.push( $(this).val() );
 
		});
 
		vals = vals.join(",");
 
		window.location.replace('<?php echo home_url('find-my-apartment'); ?>?bedrooms=' + vals);
 
		console.log( vals );
 
	});
 
})(jQuery);	
</script>

This is the page: http://tlc.mainteractivegroup.com/find-my-apartment/

The first problem is that it is giving me a PHP error on this line:<?php foreach( $field['choices'] as $choice_value =>

The second problem is, when I add ?bedrooms=3 or any other number to the URL it goes to a 404 page.

The third thing I noticed – don’t know if this matters or not but when I add ?post_type=apartment to the URL it brings up the page just fine.

So I really need some help getting this part at least functional. I also don’t really understand completely how this function interacts with the existing loop I have on the page. You can see below the PHP error I have a loop that displays out all the apartments with the custom fields. Do I need to do anything to change that loop for this to work?

Thanks in advance!

• Elliot

• February 13, 2014 at 3:13 pm

Hi @lewmaster

The first thing I noticed is that your pre_get_posts filter uses this code:

$bedrooms = explode('|', $_GET['bedrooms']);

This should be:

$bedrooms = explode(',', $_GET['bedrooms']);

Please debug your code line by line to make sure all variables are correct and that your output is as desired.

Thanks
E

• lewmaster

• February 14, 2014 at 3:36 am

Thanks so much for getting back to me. I switched the | back to a , and double checked my variables and it looks basically just like the sample code. I am still getting the same error. It is on this line

foreach( $field['choices'] as $choice_value => $choice_label ):

I’m not sure what ‘choices’ is supposed to be.

Also – I maybe didn’t mention this before but this is pulling from a custom post type rather than regular posts. Does that make a difference?

• lewmaster

• February 15, 2014 at 4:28 am

Ok so I did make a little progress on this.

I set up a second instance of the site on another server to do some further testing.

I was finally able to get it to somewhat work here: http://sandbox.webcontempodata.com/?bedrooms=2

It correctly pulls the data and formats it the way I want it. The only way I could get it to work was by not assigning a custom home page – so that it uses index.php to pull homepage content, and then I added the code from my original apartment finder home page to index.php.

So I guess the main question is: how do I get it to work just like this, but on an interior page like this: http://tlc.mainteractivegroup.com/find-my-apartment/

Also – any idea why I would be getting the PHP error on one site and not on the other when they both are set up the same?

• Elliot

• February 17, 2014 at 10:23 am

Hi @lewmaster
It looks liek the issue is coming from the ACF field not being found. Can you please debug the $field variable like so:

$field = get_field_object('bedrooms');
echo '<pre>';
	print_r( $field );
echo '</pre>';

My guess is that ACF does not know where to find the field. The get_field_object function will only work if a value has already been saved to the current $post.

If your code is not run on single post page, then ACF will not be able to load the field. Perhaps you will need to change bedrooms to the field_key.

using the field_key removes the need to lookup the value => key relationship.

Thanks
E