Question

I am trying to use the Category Posts (WP-CPL) plug-in on a blog I’m working on to filter ‘Recent Posts’ by category. Basically, when someone clicks on the category name on the blog, I would like it to display the posts from that category. This would be through the ‘archives.php’ file of the Life Is Simple template.

The shortcode for the plug-in is:

[wp_cpl_sc cat_id=40 list_num=4 css_theme=2 sticky_post="79"]

This is just an example where ‘cat_id’ represents the category that the plugin will display. I don’t want to display just one category, I want it to display the appropriate category when someone clicks on the link. How can I get the plug-in to recognize which category is being requested and display the appropriate posts?

I know that the category title is:

<?php single_cat_title(); ?>

But how do I find the category ID number in this fashion? I’ve included the PHP for the plug-in’s file titled ‘wp_cpl_shortcode.php’ below if that needs to be edited. I would prefer to use shortcode in the actual coding of the site for simplicity’s purpose.

<?php
/**
 * shortcode
 * The library of shortcode class
 * @author Swashata <[e-mail]>
 * @subpackage WP Category Post List Plugin
 * @version 2.0.0
 */

/**
 * The WP CPL shorttag support
 * @since 1.1.0
 * This was started from the version 1.1.0 and was finished by 2.0.0
 */
class itgdb_wp_cpl_shortcode {
    /**
     * The wp_cpl_shortcode_handler function
     * This function is responsible for converting shortcodes into dynamic contents
     * @package WordPress
     * @subpackage WordPress Category Post List plugin
     * @since 1.1.0
     * @param array $atts The attributes passed through the shortcode
     * @param string $content The string passed through the shortcode. Used for generating title
     * @return string The modified content
     */
    public function wp_cpl_shortcode_handler($atts, $content = null) {
        /** first extract the attributes */
        $op = shortcode_atts(array(
        'cat_id'            => 1,
            'css_theme'                 => 0,
        'is_thumb'          => 'true',
        'list_num'          => 10,
        'show_comments'     => 'true',
        'sort_using'        => 1,
        'sort_order'        => 'asc',
        'exclude_post'      => '',
        'sticky_post'       => '',
            'show_date'                 => 'true',
            'show_author'               => 'true',
            'show_excerpt'              => 'true',
            'excerpt_length'            => 150,
            'optional_excerpt'          => 'false',
            'read_more'                 => __('Continue Reading', itgdb_wp_cpl_loader::$text_domain),
        ), $atts);

        /** Sanitize some of the user datas */
        $cat_id = (int) $op['cat_id'];
        $i = 0;
        /** Done, now the main thing */
        include_once itgdb_wp_cpl_loader::$abs_path . '/includes/wp_cpl_output_gen.php';
        $output_gen = new itgdb_wp_cpl_output_gen();
        return $output_gen->shortcode_output_gen($op);
    }
}

Sorry if this question is convulated, I’m still learning and think I’ve twisted my brain around today. Thanks for any help!

---

The plug-in page is here:

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-category-posts-list/

P.S. I will also post this in the wordpress.stackexchange.com , I just thought maybe this was a good PHP coding question to ask on this forum as well.

---

EDIT

I tried several things.

Number one:

<?php $categoryid = get_the_category($post->ID);
echo do_shortcode( '[wp_cpl_sc cat_id=".$categoryid." list_num=4 css_theme=2 sticky_post="79"]'); 
?>

This didn’t do anything. It just displayed the first four posts.

Number two (I found a different PHP function in WordPress):

<?php $category_current = get_query_var($cat);
echo do_shortcode('[wp_cpl_sc cat_id="$category_current" list_num=4 css_theme=2 sticky_post="79"]');
?>

I go this idea from here http://www.wpsite.net/how-to-get-category-id-current-category/ . I also tried it as get_query_var(‘cat’) as it says on the site but that didn’t work either. Am I close? Is it a slight matter of syntax? Basically just need to grab the current category ID number and pass it into the ‘cat_id’ part of the shortcode. Thanks.

Answer 1

There’s a much easier way to do what I was looking to do (for all those in the future that are looking at this post). I just dynamically called the different elements from the blog through PHP. I set it up first like this:

<?php
global $post;
$category = get_the_category($post->ID);
$category = $category[0]->cat_ID;
$myposts = get_posts(array('numberposts' => 5, 'offset' => 0, 'category__in' => array($category), 'post__not_in' => array($post->ID),'post_status'=>'publish'));
foreach($myposts as $post) :
setup_postdata($post);
?>

And then the different elements to call are the thumbnail image:
<?php the_post_thumbnail(); ?>

You can also size the thumbnail like so:
<?php set_post_thumbnail_size( 300, 300 ); ?>

The title:
<?php the_title(); ?>

And the excerpt:
<?php the_excerpt(); ?>

They can be styled by including these elements in divs and styling the divs with sizes thusly. Much easier than trying to change a plugin that’s already hard coded.