How to create tabled index of posts in a certain category

1 comment

1. There several different ways to achieve that: a custom template, a metabox, or a shortcode. In all cases you will probably use get_posts() or WP_Query to fetch the posts and some method to set the category. The following sample code illustrates that with a shortcode.

   Basic usage

   You just write the shortcode in your post editor on a page or a blog post:

   [posttable catname="Uncategorized"]

   

   The code

   In a plugin you register the shortcode and you create a function to return the output. Be aware that a shortcode always just returns a string, it doesn’t use echo or print.

   <?php
   /* Plugin Name: T5 Post Table Shortcode
    * Description: Create a table of post with: <code>[posttable catname="category-name"]</code>.
    */
   
   add_shortcode( 'posttable', 't5_posttable_shortcode' );
   
   /**
    * Create a table with all post from a category.
    *
    * @param  array $attr
    * @return string
    */
   function t5_posttable_shortcode( $attr )
   {
       $defaults = array (
           'catname' => FALSE,
           /* table attributes */
           'class'   => FALSE,
           'id'      => FALSE,
           /* name of a registered script to enqueue in the footer if
            * results are found. */
           'script'  => FALSE,
           'order'   => 'DESC',
           'orderby' => 'date'
       );
       extract( shortcode_atts( $defaults, $attr ) );
   
       $get_posts_args = array (
           'numberposts' => -1,
           'order'       => strtoupper( $order ),
           'orderby'     => $orderby,
           'post_type'   => 'post'
       );
   
       if ( $catname and $category = get_term_by( 'name', $catname, 'category' ) )
       {
           $get_posts_args['cat'] = $category->term_id;
       }
   
       if ( ! $posts = get_posts( $get_posts_args ) )
       {
           return '<!-- nothing found -->';
       }
   
       $out = '<table';
       $class and $out .= " class='$class'";
       $id    and $out .= " id='$id'";
       $out .= '><thead><tr><th scope="col">' . __( 'Name' )
           . '</th><th scope="col">' . __( 'Date' )
           . '</th><th scope="col">' . __( 'Comments' )
           . '</th></tr></thead><tbody>';
   
       $dateformat = get_option( 'date_format' );
   
       foreach ( $posts as $post )
       {
           $out .= sprintf(
               '<tr><td><a href="%1$s">%2$s</a></td><td>%3$s</td><td>%4$d</td></tr>',
               get_permalink( $post->ID ),
               get_the_title( $post->ID ),
               get_the_time( $dateformat, $post->ID ),
               get_comments_number( $post->ID )
           );
       }
   
       $script and wp_enqueue_script( $script );
   
       return "$out</tbody></table>";
   }
   

   That’s very rough; I have just sketched it hastily. You have to register the script name separately if you need some kind of a table sorter (jQuery tablesorter is nice).
   To understand the other parameters read the docs for WP_Query.

   To use the excerpt or thumbnail just add …

   apply_filters( 'get_the_excerpt', $post->post_excerpt )
   

   … or …

   get_the_post_thumbnail( $post->ID )
   

   … where you need it.

   For example like this:

   get_the_title( $post->ID ) 
       . get_the_post_thumbnail( $post->ID ) 
       . apply_filters( 'get_the_excerpt', $post->post_excerpt )
   

   The result

   In TwentyEleven it looks like this:

   

   The parameters id and class should offer enough flexibility to adjust the styles. 🙂

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