[Plugin: Custom Content Type Manager] Relations — Display loop with Title, date, excerpt and featur

See http://code.google.com/p/wordpress-custom-content-type-manager/wiki/FAQ

Specifically #2. You’ll want to use the http://code.google.com/p/wordpress-custom-content-type-manager/wiki/get_post_OutputFilter filter. Also note that WP stores the featured image as a hidden custom field named _thumbnail_id.

Actually, you should be able to print out “thumbnail_src” to get the thumbnail’s src.

$my_posts = get_custom_field(‘select_relative_posts:to_array’, ‘get_post’);
foreach ($my_posts as $p) {
print $p[‘post_title’];
print $p[‘guid’]; // this is the permalink
print $p[‘thumbnail_src’]; // this is the src of the thumbnail (if a featured image is set)
}

I can only advise you in the use of the CCTM — there are plenty of tutorials, books, sites out there to help you write HTML or PHP. PHP’s print_r() is a useful debugging tool that shows you the contents of an array.

So if you do this:

print_r($p);

And you see this:

Array ( [ID] => 24 [post_author] => 1 ...etc...

Then you know you can do this:

print $p['ID'];

And that will print 24.

print $p['post_author'];

Will print out 1, etc. All I was helping you see was how the CCTM could be used to retrieve that data. How you choose to print and format it is entirely up to you.

Perhaps you’ve fallen victim to WP’s way of coddling people into thinking that there has to be a function for everything. You don’t need a function for this: just print out the data where you need it. E.g.

<a href="<?php print $p['guid']; ?>"><?php print $p['post_title']; ?></a>

I much prefer the laissez faire approach where you add the HTML you want and keep the PHP in your templates as clean and simple as possible. It’s a case where less is more.

Do you see the foreach statement there? It’s bounded by the curly braces, so anything you want to loop over will have to go inside the { braces }.

You didn’t DO anything with the data that was inside the loop: you just stated the variable, you didn’t actually PRINT it. It also looks like you botched your anchor tag, AND you have errors in your PHP:

print $p[post_excerpt]; <– this needs quotes around the array key

Whereas this works:
print $p['post_excerpt'];

Maybe that’s just the WP forum clipping your code. Better to use pastebin.com for code.

Very importantly, you gotta turn on debugging, otherwise you’re flying in the dark. Put this into your wp-config.php file somewhere near the top:

define('WP_DEBUG', true);

It’s soooo critical to get your environment set up. I talk about this in some detail in my book: http://www.amazon.com/WordPress-3-Plugin-Development-Essentials/dp/184951352X

Anyhow… you can start to see why I hate the way WP handles templates and why I always recommend MODX for a sturdy and scalable CMS with clean architecture. In my mind, there should be as little logic and looping in your templates as possible… WordPress isn’t as bad as Joomla and Drupal, but its approach here is entirely wrong in my opinion.

Here’s the code that I think you want:
http://pastebin.com/LgwYh0f5

Can you see how the loop there iterates over your HTML? That stuff will be printed for each post in your array.

If the thumbnail_src isn’t coming through but the _thumbnail_id is, then use one of the previously mentioned WP functions to fetch that post’s guid. The thumbnail is just another post, it just happens to be an image post, and you want that post’s guid.

Date formats: you’ll have to read up on PHP’s multiple ways of converting date formats.

http://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/wp_get_attachment_image

Man, I think you’re missing what’s going on here. When you use the “get_post” output filter, the $p variable contains the ENTIRE POST ARRAY. $p is an ARRAY, not an integer. get_the_post_thumbnail() only retrieves the dedicated “featured image”, but when you pass it an array when it expects an integer, it instead coughs out the thumbnail for the CURRENT POST because you fed it bad input. So of course, it prints that out over and over.

Use this function:
http://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/wp_get_attachment_image

And you have to pass it an INTEGER, not the whole array. You could omit the “get_posts” output filter and deal just with the raw integers (e.g. with a multi-image field):

<?php
$my_posts = get_custom_field('select_relative_images:to_array');
foreach ($my_posts as $post_id) {
   print wp_get_attachment_image($post_id');
}
?>

Or for use in with a multi-relation field, you MUST indicate which field you are passing to the wp_get_attachment_image() function. (see the WP docs for its other arguments).

<?php
$my_posts = get_custom_field('select_relative_images:to_array', 'get_post');
foreach ($my_posts as $p) {
   print wp_get_attachment_image($p['some_integer_field']);
   // or
   //    print wp_get_attachment_image($p['ID']);
   // or
    //    print wp_get_attachment_image($p['_thumbnail_id');
}
?>

See how you have to specify a KEY In the $p array there? You can’t just throw $p around, you have to read a value out of it. You have to tell wp_get_attachment_image() which integer to operate on. If you know post ID 123 is an image, then leave the CCTM and everything else out of it and verify that you comprehend this function in its simplest usage:

<?php
print wp_get_attachment_image(123);
?>

If this stuff is really over your head, it would probably save us both a lot of time to hire me to fix this up for you, then you could see how it’s done:
http://fireproofsocks.com/contact/