Custom meta box value changing when creating new custom post WordPress
Hey,
I'm developing a portfolio theme for which I've created a system for featuring 4 of your projects on the homepage..
I have a custom post type for the portfolio and I've created a custom meta box with a checkbox, so you can go through your portfolio posts and check the box to feature it on the homepage.. this is all working great - my loop on the homepage looks for 4 portfolio posts and inside that loop I've used an 'if' statement to only display projects that are checked/featured..
The problem is that when I then post a new project to my portfolio post type, the last project that I featured has its checkbox unchecked. So where I had my 4 featured projects on the homepage - I post a new project and feature number 4 loses it's check value and now there's only 3 featured..
Here's my metabox code..
// Create a custom meta box to check for featured projects
add_action("admin_init", "featured_check_admin");
function featured_check_admin() {
add_meta_box("featured_check-meta", "Featured Project", "featured_check", "portfolio", "side", "high");
}
function featured_check() {
global $post;
$custom = get_post_custom($post->ID);
$featured_check = $custom["featured_check"][0];
?>
<div style="padding: 10px;">
<label style="padding: 0 5px 0 0;">Feature this project?</label>
<input type="checkbox" id="featured_check" name="featured_check" value="1" <?php if( $featured_check == 1 ) echo 'checked="yes"'; ?> />
</div>
<?php
}
And here's my homepage loop..
<div id="featured-projects" class="inner-container">
<?php $featured_projects = new WP_Query('post_type=portfolio&showposts=4'); while( $featured_projects->have_posts() ) : $featured_projects->the_post(); ?>
<?php if( get_post_meta($post->ID, 'featured_check', true) ) { ?>
<div class="feature-project">
<?php the_post_thumbnail('featured'); ?>
</div><!-- end .feature-project -->
<?php } ?>
<?php endwhile; wp_reset_postdata(); ?>
</div><!-- end #featured-projects -->
Why does publishing a new portfolio post cause one of the featured projects to lose it's checkbox value?
Cheers!
Answers (2)
Lee Willis answers:
You haven't posted the code that saves your values, but it's possible that you're not checking for / excluding auto-saves , e.g.
http://techwithketan.wordpress.com/2011/04/14/auto-save-problem-for-custom-variables/
You'd use it right at the top of your save_featured_details() function, e.g.
function save_featured_details() {
global $post;
if ( defined('DOING_AUTOSAVE') && DOING_AUTOSAVE )
return $post->ID;
update_post_meta($post->ID, "featured_check", $_POST["featured_check"]);
}
Paul Winslow comments:
Woops, here it is..
// Create a custom meta box to check for featured projects
add_action("admin_init", "featured_check_admin");
function featured_check_admin() {
add_meta_box("featured_check-meta", "Featured Project", "featured_check", "portfolio", "side", "high");
}
function featured_check() {
global $post;
$custom = get_post_custom($post->ID);
$featured_check = $custom["featured_check"][0];
?>
<div style="padding: 10px;">
<label style="padding: 0 5px 0 0;">Feature this project?</label>
<input type="checkbox" id="featured_check" name="featured_check" value="1" <?php if( $featured_check == 1 ) echo 'checked="yes"'; ?> />
</div>
<?php
}
add_action('save_post', 'save_featured_details');
function save_featured_details() {
global $post;
update_post_meta($post->ID, "featured_check", $_POST["featured_check"]);
}
Paul Winslow comments:
Could you show me where to use that autosave conditional statement in my code?
Cheers!
Lee Willis comments:
I've updated my original answer to show where the checks would go.
Paul Winslow comments:
I've added the autosave check but doesn't seem to do the job. There's now only specific portfolio posts that I can feature - others don't show up on the homepage.
Paul Winslow comments:
Okay.. if I take away 'showposts=4' from the homepage loop it seems to solve it.. I can make a new post to the portfolio post type and my 4 featured/checked projects remain intact.. but I would quite like to keep 'showposts=4' in my loop because now if you check more than 4 posts you have unwanted posts stacking up on the homepage..
Any ideas/suggestions?
Cheers!
Caroline Keim answers:
Try using
<div id="featured-projects" class="inner-container">
<?php $featured_projects = new WP_Query('post_type=portfolio&showposts=4&meta_key=featured_check&meta_value=true'); while( $featured_projects->have_posts() ) : $featured_projects->the_post(); ?>
<div class="feature-project">
<?php the_post_thumbnail('featured'); ?>
</div><!-- end .feature-project -->
<?php endwhile; wp_reset_postdata(); ?>
</div><!-- end #featured-projects -->
Paul Winslow comments:
Cheers for the suggestion, but this seems to break the loop - it doesn't pull any projects out.
Caroline Keim comments:
Maybe we need to change where I had meta_value=true to meta_value=1.
If you echo the featured_check value - what is it saving as? True or 1?
Paul Winslow comments:
featured_check value returns as 1, but if I post a new portfolio item the last item I featured still loses its checkbox value.
I'd appreciate any follow-up suggestions :)
Paul Winslow comments:
Okay.. if I take away 'showposts=4' from the homepage loop it seems to solve it.. I can make a new post to the portfolio post type and my 4 featured/checked projects remain intact.. but I would quite like to keep 'showposts=4' in my loop because now if you check more than 4 posts you have unwanted posts stacking up on the homepage..
Any ideas/suggestions?
Cheers!
Caroline Keim comments:
Do you by chance have another query on the same page? I'm thinking it could be conflicting if you didn't set a reset afterwards? Sorry just trying to figure out what could be the problem.
Paul Winslow comments:
I have two loops using a variable with WP_Query and then the main blog loop using query_posts, and I'm using wp_reset_data(); at the end of my WP_Query loops if that's what you meant?
Cheers :)
Caroline Keim comments:
Try using <?php wp_reset_query(); ?> instead.
http://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/wp_reset_query
Paul Winslow comments:
Still no luck.
I've also tried using an array in my loops but no luck with that, either.
Caroline Keim comments:
Here we go again...added an if statement.
<div id="featured-projects" class="inner-container">
<?php $featured_projects = "post_type=portfolio&showposts=4&meta_key=featured_check&meta_value=1"; $my_query = new WP_Query($featured_projects); ?>
<?php if ($featured_projects->have_posts()) : while ($featured_projects->have_posts()) : $featured_projects->the_post(); ?>
<div class="feature-project">
<?php the_post_thumbnail('featured'); ?>
</div><!-- end .feature-project -->
<?php endwhile; // end of one post ?>
<?php endif; //end of loop ?>
<?php wp_reset_query(); ?>
</div><!-- end #featured-projects -->