To help your visitors find and enjoy your Post Format Archives, here is a widget that displays a menu with links to each of them. It’s a great way to open up your site and showcase your custom content.

What it does

As-is, this widget displays links for the Post Formats that are included with the Twenty Twelve default theme:

• Asides
• Images
• Links
• Quotes
• Status

It should be possible to change these and add new Post Formats by editing the code as needed. Here are some screenshots showing the simplicity of the Post Format Archives Widget:

As you can see, the widget includes options for the title-text and each of the menu items’ link text. On the front-end of your site, the menu will list links to the Archive Page View for each of the five Post Formats.

Post Format Archives Widget

Here is the code required to implement this widget:

// Post Format Archives Widget
// http://digwp.com/2013/04/post-format-archives-widget/

add_action('widgets_init', create_function('', 'register_widget("Post_Format_Archives_Widget");'));

class Post_Format_Archives_Widget extends WP_Widget {
	function __construct() {
		parent::WP_Widget('post_format_archives_widget', 'Post Format Archives', array('description'=>'Displays a list of links to post-format archives'));
	}
	function widget($args, $instance) {
		extract($args, EXTR_SKIP);

		$title  = empty($instance['title']) ? ' ' : apply_filters('widget_title', $instance['title']);
 		$aside  = empty($instance['aside']) ? ' ' : apply_filters('widget_aside', $instance['aside']);
		$image  = empty($instance['image']) ? ' ' : apply_filters('widget_image', $instance['image']);
		$link   = empty($instance['link']) ? ' ' : apply_filters('widget_link', $instance['link']);
		$quote  = empty($instance['quote']) ? ' ' : apply_filters('widget_quote', $instance['quote']);
		$status = empty($instance['status']) ? ' ' : apply_filters('widget_status', $instance['status']);

		echo $before_widget;
		if (!empty($title)) { echo $before_title . $title . $after_title; };

		// @ http://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/get_post_format_link
		echo '<ul id="custom-post-format-widget">';
		echo '	<li><a href="' . get_post_format_link('aside') . '">' . $aside . '</a></li>';
		echo '	<li><a href="' . get_post_format_link('image') . '">' . $image . '</a></li>';
		echo '	<li><a href="' . get_post_format_link('link') . '">' . $link . '</a></li>';
		echo '	<li><a href="' . get_post_format_link('quote') . '">' . $quote . '</a></li>';
		echo '	<li><a href="' . get_post_format_link('status') . '">' . $status . '</a></li>';
		echo '</ul>';

		echo $after_widget;
	}
	function update($new_instance, $old_instance) {
		$instance = $old_instance;
		$instance['title']  = strip_tags($new_instance['title']);
		$instance['aside']  = strip_tags($new_instance['aside']);
		$instance['image']  = strip_tags($new_instance['image']);
		$instance['link']   = strip_tags($new_instance['link']);
		$instance['quote']  = strip_tags($new_instance['quote']);
		$instance['status'] = strip_tags($new_instance['status']);
		return $instance;
	}
	function form($instance) {
		$defaults = array(
			'title' => __('Browse the site'), 
			'aside' => __('View Aside posts'), 
			'image' => __('View Image posts'), 
			'link' => __('View Link posts'), 
			'quote' => __('View Quote posts'), 
			'status' => __('View Status posts'),
		);
		$instance = wp_parse_args((array) $instance, $defaults);
		$title = strip_tags($instance['title']);
		$aside = strip_tags($instance['aside']);
		$image = strip_tags($instance['image']);
		$link = strip_tags($instance['link']);
		$quote = strip_tags($instance['quote']);
		$status = strip_tags($instance['status']); ?>

		<p><label for="<?php echo $this->get_field_id('title'); ?>">Title text</label>
			<input class="widefat" id="<?php echo $this->get_field_id('title'); ?>" name="<?php echo $this->get_field_name('title'); ?>" type="text" value="<?php echo esc_attr($title); ?>" />
		</p>
		<p><label for="<?php echo $this->get_field_id('aside'); ?>"><?php _e('Link text for Aside archive'); ?></label>
			<input class="widefat" id="<?php echo $this->get_field_id('aside'); ?>" name="<?php echo $this->get_field_name('aside'); ?>" type="text" value="<?php echo esc_attr($aside); ?>" />
		</p>
		<p><label for="<?php echo $this->get_field_id('image'); ?>"><?php _e('Link text for Image archive'); ?></label>
			<input class="widefat" id="<?php echo $this->get_field_id('image'); ?>" name="<?php echo $this->get_field_name('image'); ?>" type="text" value="<?php echo esc_attr($image); ?>" />
		</p>
		<p><label for="<?php echo $this->get_field_id('link'); ?>"><?php _e('Link text for Link archive'); ?></label>
			<input class="widefat" id="<?php echo $this->get_field_id('link'); ?>" name="<?php echo $this->get_field_name('link'); ?>" type="text" value="<?php echo esc_attr($link); ?>" />
		</p>
		<p><label for="<?php echo $this->get_field_id('quote'); ?>"><?php _e('Link text for Quote archive'); ?></label>
			<input class="widefat" id="<?php echo $this->get_field_id('quote'); ?>" name="<?php echo $this->get_field_name('quote'); ?>" type="text" value="<?php echo esc_attr($quote); ?>" />
		</p>
		<p><label for="<?php echo $this->get_field_id('status'); ?>"><?php _e('Link text for Status archive'); ?></label>
			<input class="widefat" id="<?php echo $this->get_field_id('status'); ?>" name="<?php echo $this->get_field_name('status'); ?>" type="text" value="<?php echo esc_attr($status); ?>" />
		</p>
<?php }
}

To add this widget to your theme, include it in the functions.php file and upload to your server. No code-editing is required, unless you want to swap out some Post Formats or add some new ones. Note that one of the keys to making this work is the get_post_format_link() function, which is listed here in the WP Codex.

An easier way?

I created this widget to help with a new theme I’m developing for a new book on WordPress. If you know of a better, simpler way of doing it — and I have no doubt that there is one — please share your wisdom with a comment. Thanks!

© 2013 Digging into WordPress | Permalink | 10 comments | Add to del.icio.us | Post tags: tips, widgets

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The problem is even worse for anyone looking for application type themes such as classified ads, directory themes, daily deal themes, or the like. As WordPress increases in popularity, these themes are in higher and higher demand, but finding all of the options so that you can choose the best one is getting tough. Did you know there are at least 17 different themes out there just for Classified Ads? No one else does either.

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Creating a theme directory is not a unique concept of course – there are dozens of other directories on the web. What IS unique about my site is that it’s kept up to date. My team regularly monitors theme companies to keep up with new releases as well as themes that are deprecated. My convinced that we have the freshest index of any other theme directory of this type out there.

To date we have over 300 business themes, over 200 magazine themes, and over 100 ecommerce themes (more ecommerce themes than any other marketplace on the web!). We’ve also put together some helpful resources for the WordPress community like our list of WordPress theme companies that offer affiliate programs, and our list of theme companies that we’ve indexed which are in addition to our theme reviews, theme comparisons, and news posts.

Overall, I’m VERY happy with how the site has turned out and I hope that the rest of the WordPress community embraces it to help them find the perfect them. I’m firmly convinced that no matter what the web application, “there is a theme for that” and that my new site is probably your best bet for finding it! I know that I find myself using the site all the time myself :)

Link: There is a Theme for That

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For example, if you’re displaying a static page for your front page (as specified in the Reading Settings), you may want to display your blog posts separately, perhaps on a custom “blog” page. That’s what I ended up doing for the xy.css blog while using a static (post-less) home page. It’s nice because post-navigation works intuitively, like so:

• http://xycss.com/blog/ — displays latest blog posts
• http://xycss.com/blog/page/2/ — displays second page of posts
• http://xycss.com/blog/page/3/ — displays third page of posts
• ..etc..

As you can imagine, this is super-useful when setting up custom CMS configurations, for example when using the home page as a forum, storefront, or landing page. For such scenarios, here’s how to display blog posts on a custom page (with navigation!).

Update! almost immediately after this article posted, Brian Krogsgard explains an even easier way: create two pages and then set one as the “front page” and the other as the “posts page” via Reading Settings. The method here may be useful for further customization (via query parameters), but using the settings-only method is a better way to do it.

Step 1: Page template

Create a blank page template named “page-blog.php” and include the following code:

<?php 
/*
	Template Name: Blog
*/
?>
<?php get_header(); ?>

	<article>

		<?php // Display blog posts on any page @ http://m0n.co/l
		$temp = $wp_query; $wp_query= null;
		$wp_query = new WP_Query(); $wp_query->query('showposts=5' . '&paged='.$paged);
		while ($wp_query->have_posts()) : $wp_query->the_post(); ?>

		<h2><a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>" title="Read more"><?php the_title(); ?></a></h2>
		<?php the_excerpt(); ?>

		<?php endwhile; ?>

		<?php if ($paged > 1) { ?>

		<nav id="nav-posts">
			<div class="prev"><?php next_posts_link('&laquo; Previous Posts'); ?></div>
			<div class="next"><?php previous_posts_link('Newer Posts &raquo;'); ?></div>
		</nav>

		<?php } else { ?>

		<nav id="nav-posts">
			<div class="prev"><?php next_posts_link('&laquo; Previous Posts'); ?></div>
		</nav>

		<?php } ?>

		<?php wp_reset_postdata(); ?>

	</article>

<?php get_footer(); ?>

That’s the money shot, just plug it in and take charge with your own parameters for WP_Query and you’re all set. For example, instead of showing 5 posts, you can set showposts=10 or whatever works best.

Note that the post-navigation is conditional, such that the first page of posts (i.e., your /blog/ page) doesn’t display empty markup/styles for the “next posts” link. Learn more about optimizing WordPress post navigation.

Note also that the HTML used in this example is rudimentary to keep things simple. You’ll probably need to make a few changes to the markup to synchronize with your theme design.

Step 2: Add New Page

Once page-blog.php is complete and uploaded to the server, log in to the WP Admin and visit the Add New Page screen. There, create a new page named “Blog” (or whatever you want), and set its Template as “Blog” from the “Page Attributes” panel.

Done! Now visit the Blog page after publishing and you should see the custom WP_Query loop working its magic: your latest blog posts will be displayed on the page along with navigation to previous posts, if they exist ;)

Wrap-up

WordPress makes it easy to display your blog posts just about anywhere. In this post, we explain how to display posts on any page using a custom WP_Query loop that supports post navigation, which can be super-useful when configuring WordPress as a customized CMS.

© 2013 Digging into WordPress | Permalink | 16 comments | Add to del.icio.us | Post tags: loop, navigation, pages, posts, template