A challenge for the experts! Editing blog post layout on homepage

  • Unknown's avatar
    desiharmony · Member ·

    Hello,

    My url is http://www.sapnamagazine.com.

    I’m pretty inexperienced with .php but I spliced together some stuff to edit my default.php, and came up with a format that does the following:

    – in the top area, display the most recent post from 3 different categories
    – in the bottom area, display the most recent posts from the blog category.

    What I want to do:

    – change the top area (3 boxes underneath the slideshow) to display the 3 most recent posts, no matter what category they’re from (even if they’re from the same category).

    – in those top 3 boxes, I’d like to exclude two categories, numbers 9 and 168.

    For that top area, when we release new boxes under the slideshow, I go into default.php and edit the line that says

    $cats = array(7,159,3);

    Where 7, 159 and 3 would be the three categories in the boxes. I know I have to change this line but don’t know what to do…

    The entire code for my default.php is below.

    Thank you so much in advance!
    Mar

    ———–

    <div class=”box”>

    <?php /* THIS IS WHERE YOU INPUT THE ARRAY OF CATEGORY IDs */
    include(TEMPLATEPATH . ‘/includes/version.php’);

    $cats = array(7,159,3);

    /* DO NOT EDIT BELOW */

    foreach($cats as $key => $catz)
    {

    ?>
    <div class=”post <?php
    if (($key + 1) % 3 == 0)
    {
    echo ” fix2″;
    }
    else if (($key + 1) % 3 == 2)
    {
    echo ” margin”;
    }
    ?>”>

    <div class=”post-content”>

    <?php /* EDIT THE showposts= NUMBER BELOW FOR MORE POSTS IN EACH CAT */

    $my_query = new WP_Query(‘cat=’.$catz.’&showposts=1′); while ($my_query->have_posts()) : $my_query->the_post(); if ( $post->ID == $do_not_duplicate ) continue; update_post_caches($posts); $do_not_duplicate = $post->ID; ?>

    <?php if ( get_post_meta($post->ID, ‘image’, true) ) { ?> <!– DISPLAYS THE IMAGE URL SPECIFIED IN THE CUSTOM FIELD –>

    <img src=”<?php echo bloginfo(‘template_url’); ?>/thumb.php?src=<?php echo get_post_meta($post->ID, “image”, $single = true); ?>&w=164&&h=100&&zc=1&q=95″ alt=”<?php the_title(); ?>” height=”100″ width=”164″ class=”home_thumb” />

    <?php } else { ?> <!– DISPLAY THE DEFAULT IMAGE, IF CUSTOM FIELD HAS NOT BEEN COMPLETED –>

    <img src=”<?php bloginfo(‘template_directory’); ?>/images/no_img_homepage.jpg” alt=”” width=”164″ height=”100″ class=”th” />

    <?php } ?>

    <?php endwhile; ?>

    <h2>” href=”<?php the_permalink() ?>” rel=”bookmark”><?php the_title(); ?></h2>

    <p><b><?php the_time(‘F d, Y’); ?></b><font color=”white”>_</font><?php echo strip_tags(get_the_excerpt(), ”); ?><span class=”continue”>” href=”<?php the_permalink() ?>”> Read on!</span></p>

    </div>

    <div class=”posted-in”>

    <h3 class=”posted”>More <?php the_category(‘, ‘) ?><span class=”comments”><?php comments_popup_link(‘Discuss (0)’, ‘Discuss (1)’, ‘Discuss (%)’); ?></span></h3>

    </div>

    </div><!–/post–>

    <?php if (($key + 1) % 3 == 0) { ?><div class=”3fclear”></div><?php } ?>

    <?php } ?>

    <div class=”fix” style=”height:10px”></div>

    </div><!–/box–>

    <img src=”http://www.sapnamagazine.com/wp-content/themes/gazette/gazette/images/the_sapna_blog.jpg”>

    <div class=”bigbox”>

    <?php
    include(TEMPLATEPATH . ‘/includes/version.php’);

    $categories = “168”; // comma-seperated list of categories to show

    $the_query = new WP_Query(‘cat=-‘. $ex_feat . ‘,-‘ . $ex_vid . ‘,’ . $categories . ‘&showposts=’ . $showposts . ‘&orderby=post_date&order=desc’);

    $counter = 0;

    $paged = (get_query_var(‘paged’)) ? get_query_var(‘paged’) : 5; query_posts(“cat=5&paged=$paged”);
    while ($the_query->have_posts()) : $the_query->the_post(); $do_not_duplicate = $post->ID;
    ?>

    <div class=”bigpost”>

    <div class=”bigpost-content”>

    <?php if ( get_post_meta($post->ID, ‘image’, true) ) { ?> <!– DISPLAYS THE IMAGE URL SPECIFIED IN THE CUSTOM FIELD –>

    ” href=”<?php the_permalink() ?>” rel=”bookmark”><img src=”<?php echo bloginfo(‘template_url’); ?>/thumb.php?src=<?php echo get_post_meta($post->ID, “image”, $single = true); ?>&w=197&&h=120&q=95″ alt=”<?php the_title(); ?>” height=”120″ width=”197″ class=”bighome_thumb” />

    <?php } else { ?> <!– DISPLAY THE DEFAULT IMAGE, IF CUSTOM FIELD HAS NOT BEEN COMPLETED –>

    <img src=”<?php bloginfo(‘template_directory’); ?>/images/no_img_homepage.jpg” alt=”” class=”th” />

    <?php } ?>

    <h2>” href=”<?php the_permalink() ?>” rel=”bookmark”><?php the_title(); ?></h2>

    <p><b><?php the_time(‘F d, Y’); ?></b><font color=”white”>_</font><?php echo strip_tags(get_the_excerpt(), ”); ?><span class=”continue”>” href=”<?php the_permalink() ?>”>Read full entry</span></p>

    </div>

    </div><!–/post–>

    <?php endwhile; ?>

    </div><!–/bigbox–>

  • Unknown's avatar
    timethief · Member ·

    If you look at the footer of your blog you will find a “Powered by WordPress” link and if click it you will find you have a wordpress.org blog for self hosting. You have posted to the wordpress.com forum where we cannot help you. The correct support forum for your software is here > http://wordpress.org/support

  • Unknown's avatar
    desiharmony · Member ·

    Thank you!

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