code snippet for no-posts display message

  • Resolved webbuildermn

    (@webbuildermn)


    5 years, 2 months ago

    Hi, I was wondering if I am even on the right track with this wordpress function. I want to put it in code-snippets so it exists across themes.

    The issue is I am making a website for a client-friend. He wants a private blog that only registered users can view the posts of, and his homepage to display his latest posts. Since all posts are “private”, if the visitor is not logged in, no posts show, and with Illustratr, we get a “not found” message, which I edited to say “You are not logged in. Please log in to view all posts”. With Astra, a theme I want to switch to, we get a white screen in the middle (unless logged in, in which case we get an awesome display of posts). But this question is not about themes- because I already asked a more general question to the Astra forum. This question is about how to write a custom function/hook, and whether that is what I need to do. I worked out the following code, but it didn’t work out. Am I even on the right track? 

    function no_posts_on_home () {
	if ( is_home() && !have_posts() ){
		return ?> <h1>You are not logged in. Please log in to view all posts.</h1> <?php ); 
	}
}

add_action('pre_get_posts', 'no_posts_on_home ()');

    Then I changed the return line to just be
    echo “You are not logged in” ;

    I got this error:
    Warning: call_user_func_array() expects parameter 1 to be a valid callback, function ‘no_posts_on_home ()’ not found or invalid function name in /app/public/wp-includes/class-wp-hook.php on line 286

    If there’s a better place to ask this, let me know!
    Thanks for your help

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
  • Joy

    (@joyously)

    5 years, 2 months ago

    No, your code is not at all what you need. What it says is “before you look for posts, if it’s blog page and there are no posts, leave the function and print that you’re not logged in”. and the parameter to the add_action has parentheses, which it shouldn’t.

    The problem you are having is because of the method chosen to hide the posts. Marking them private is not a good way to indicate when to show them, because they are only visible to those with the Editor or Admin role (unless you change that).
    You would be better off with a plugin like https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-force-login/

    Moderator bcworkz

    (@bcworkz)

    5 years, 2 months ago

    “pre_get_posts” is the wrong track to change the not found message. At the time pre_get_posts happens, the query has not executed and we don’t yet know if anything was found or not.

    The not found message comes from the theme template. To change it, you likely need to change the theme template, unless the theme offers a filter for this message (would be unusual). When you alter theme templates, if it’s a theme subject to updates, you should create a child theme to contain altered templates.

    If you are going to alter templates, one way to prevent non-logged in users from seeing posts is to include is_user_logged_in() in the logic to run the loop. Consider carefully the best logic structure for this. IMO, simply changing the not found message is sub-optimal because logged in users making bad requests will be given the wrong message. Ideally, you want a not found message for not found posts when logged in and a please login message for those not logged in, regardless of posts found.

    Thread Starter webbuildermn

    (@webbuildermn)

    5 years, 2 months ago

    That plug in work brilliantly thank you so much. It also solved another minor issue I had.

    I guess I was out of my depth in terms of coding. I did try to change the theme template to no avail. But the plug-in solved it anyway. As they usually do.

    When I first made the blog for him I used illustrator and I did some of customization. We kind of got stuck on that team. Now I use code snippets for the few things that are necessary and plugins I like the one you told me about.

    Thank you

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
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