WordPress: Dynamic Sorting of Content when a Button / Link is clicked

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I need a little help with some functionality. I am trying to create an Post Page that can be sort dynamically to show what posts the user would like to see

Use Scenario:

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In the Post, there are 4 title ei: Title A, Title B, Title C and Title D.

Title A = CARAMOAN A LOOK BACK;

Title B = DESTINATION: PUERTO PRINCESA;

Title C = THE THINGS A FREE ROUND-TRIP TICKET CAN MAKE YOU SEE;

Title D = FIVE THINGS TO REMEMBER WHEN TRAVELING IN THE PHILIPPINES;

Now with this I want to sort by:

Most Comment

Most Viewed

Alphabetical – Ascending Order

which the user can change the page order by clicking on a Button that would look something like this.

enter image description here

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1 comment

  1. The easiest way for that would be using a query string.

    I’ll assume that you are looking at a category page.

    First we will add the buttons to the category page

    <a href="?sortby=comment>Sort by Comment</a>
<a href="?sortby=views>Sort by Views</a>
<a href="?sortby=alphabet>Alphabetical</a>

    This adds a query string to the URL of the page, now on the top of the category page we will add this code:

    <?php
if (array_key_exists("sortby", $_GET) === true)
{
    $newQuery = sortIt($_GET['sortby']);
}
?>

    After that we will create a function that will sort the posts for us in the functions.php template

    Since we have 3 sort types, we could use a switch case or a if-else statement. I will use if-else here.

    <?php
function sortIt($sortType)
{
    global $wp_query;
    $cat_ID = get_query_var('cat');

    if (strcmp($sortType, 'comment') == 0 )
    {
        $newQuery = new WP_Query( array( 'orderby' => 'comment_count' , 'cat' => $cat_ID, 'posts_per_page' => '10') );
    }

    if (strcmp($sortType, 'views') == 0 )
    {
        $newQuery = new WP_Query( array( 'meta_key' => 'views', 'orderby' => 'meta_value_num', 'order'=> 'DESC', 'cat' => $cat_ID, 'posts_per_page' => '10') );
    }

    if (strcmp($sortType, 'alphabetical') == 0 )
    {
        $newQuery = new WP_Query( array( 'orderby' => 'title' , 'cat' => $cat_ID, 'posts_per_page' => '10') );
    }

    return $newQuery;
}
?>

    WordPress does not have a native view count, I used an instruction that i read here.

    Since we have all the necessary functions and variables, we need to override the query.

    You will edit the loop so it goes like this:

    <?php if ( $newQuery->have_posts() ) : while ( $newQuery->have_posts() ) : $newQuery->the_post(); ?>

    That’s it 🙂