List posts based on first letter of posts

2 comments

1. This is the code I get from here, but I don’t remember the exact page, and this is my working page of letter B on my website (using the same code as you see below)

   <?php
   /*
   Template Name: Locali per lettera
   
   A WordPress template to list page titles by first letter.
   
   You should modify the CSS to suit your theme and place it in its proper file.
   Be sure to set the $posts_per_row and $posts_per_page variables.
   */
   
   $posts_per_row = 3;
   $posts_per_page = -1;
   $pageURL = 'http';
   $post_type = 'post';
   
   if ($_SERVER["HTTPS"] == "on") {$pageURL .= "s";}
   $pageURL .= "://";
   if ($_SERVER["SERVER_PORT"] != "80") {
    $pageURL .= $_SERVER["SERVER_NAME"].":".$_SERVER["SERVER_PORT"].$_SERVER["REQUEST_URI"];
   } else {
    $pageURL .= $_SERVER["SERVER_NAME"].$_SERVER["REQUEST_URI"];
   }
   
   $letters = $wpdb->get_col(
   "SELECT DISTINCT LEFT(post_title,1) AS first_letter FROM $wpdb->posts
   WHERE post_type = '$post_type' AND post_status = 'publish'
   ORDER BY first_letter ASC"
   );
   
   $first_letter = ($_GET['first_letter']) ? $_GET['first_letter'] : $letters[0];
   ?>
   
   <?php get_header(); ?>
   
    <style type="text/css">
    .letter-group { width: 100%; border-top: 1px solid #444; }
     .navigation { text-align: center; padding:5px; margin: 0 10px;} 
    .letter { display:inline; color:#DDD;text-align: center; padding: 2px; border-top: 1px solid #48465B; border-left: 1px solid #48465B; background: #18181C; margin: 0 1px;} 
    .letter a{ color:#DDD;} 
    .letter-cell { width: 5%; color:red; font-weight:bold; height: 2em; text-align: center; padding-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; border-top: 1px solid #48465B; background: #18181C; float: left; }
    .row-cells { width: 94%; float: right;  }
    .title-cell { width: 33%;  float: left; overflow: hidden; margin-bottom: 8px; }
   .alignleft {
       float: left;
       margin-left: 25px;
   }
   .alignright {
       float: right;
       margin-right: 25px;
   }
    .clear { clear: both; }
    div#a-z .padder {
       border-right: none;
       margin-right: none;
       padding: 20px 40px;
   }
    </style>
   
   <div id="main-background">
   
      <div id="main-column">
       <br />
         <h2><?php the_title(); ?></h2>
   
         <div class="margin-top"></div>
   
         <div id="a-z">
   
            <?php
            $mam_global_where = " AND LEFT(post_title,1) = '$first_letter' ";
            $paged = (get_query_var('paged')) ? get_query_var('paged') : 1;
            $args = array (
               'posts_per_page' => $posts_per_page,
               'post_type' => $post_type,
               'orderby' => 'title',
               'order' => 'ASC',
               'paged' => $paged,
               'caller_get_posts' => 1
            );
            query_posts($args);
            $mam_global_where = '';  // Turn off filter
            if ( have_posts() ) {
               $in_this_row = 0;
               while ( have_posts() ) {
                  the_post();
                  $first_letter = strtoupper(substr(apply_filters('the_title',$post->post_title),0,1));
                  if ($first_letter != $curr_letter) {
                     if (++$post_count > 1) {
                        end_prev_letter();
                     }
                     start_new_letter($first_letter);
                     $curr_letter = $first_letter;
                  }
                  if (++$in_this_row > $posts_per_row) {
                     end_prev_row();
                     start_new_row();
                     ++$in_this_row;  // Account for this first post
                  } ?>
                  <div class="title-cell"><a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to <?php the_title_attribute(); ?>"> <?php the_title(); ?></a></div>
               <?php }
               end_prev_letter();
               ?>
               <div class="navigation">
               <?php
               foreach ($letters as $letter) {
                  $url = add_query_arg('first_letter',$letter,$pageURL);
                  echo "<div class='letter'>";
                  echo "<a href='$url' title='Starting letter $letter' > $letter </a>";
                  echo "</div>";
               }
               ?>
   
               </div>
            <?php } else {
               echo "<h2>Sorry, no posts were found!</h2>";
            }
            ?>
   
         </div><!-- End id='a-z' -->
      </div><!-- End class='margin-top --> 
   </div><!-- End id='rightcolumn' -->
   
   
   <?php
   function end_prev_letter() {
      end_prev_row();
      echo "</div><!-- End of letter-group -->n";
      echo "<div class='clear'></div>n";
   }
   function start_new_letter($letter) {
      echo "<div class='letter-group'>n";
      echo "t<div class='letter-cell'>$letter</div>n";
      start_new_row($letter);
   }
   function end_prev_row() {
      echo "t</div><!-- End row-cells -->n";
   }
   function start_new_row() {
      global $in_this_row;
      $in_this_row = 0;
      echo "t<div class='row-cells'>n";
   }
   
   ?>
   

2. This is a nuts-and-bolts way of getting at this problem. This modifies the SQL query itself, but it’s pretty much a 1 liner. I’m sure there are other ways, but this method is not very invasive to the query building process as it only mods the SQL at the end. Note I realize this method could be usurped by the syntax of a query builder at some point.

   First hook into the filter:

   add_filter('posts_request', 'YP_company_name_where', 10, 2);
   

   Then let’s modify the exact portion of the SQL request, note that we’re looking for the condition where the search / filter being run is for a First Letter and in our particular case, it is if the $input contains ‘short-company-name’. Tune your conditional to your liking.

   function YP_company_name_where($input,  &$wp_query) {
   
       if (stripos($input, 'short-company-name') !== FALSE) {
   
           $x = preg_replace("/wp_postmeta.meta_keys=s'short-company-name'sANDsCAST(wp_postmeta.meta_valuesASsCHAR)sLIKEs'%/",
                             "wp_postmeta.meta_key = 'short-company-name' AND CAST(wp_postmeta.meta_value AS CHAR) LIKE '", $input, 1);
           return $x;
       }
   
       return $input;
   }
   

   Note that if this is not exactly like your particular query, just dump out the $input, find the errant one, and tune the SQL at this stage so that your query is looking for “… LIKE [letter]%” against the column you need. All the “replace” is really doing is exactly locating the particular query and removing the “LIKE %[letter]%” and replacing it with “LIKE [letter]%”.

   I did it this way because I was using a front end plugin for filtering / querying posts already and could not easily use a stand-alone SQL query to just find a first letter. I was dealing with a multi-parameter, user driven, and / or logic filtering query situation and it was easier to modify the end result for this one case.

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