Title: Loop Issues
Last modified: August 19, 2016

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# Loop Issues

 *  [digitaljohn](https://wordpress.org/support/users/digitaljohn/)
 * (@digitaljohn)
 * [17 years, 6 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/loop-issues/)
 * Hi,
 * I’m sort of new to WordPress, but learning fast. 🙂 I’m working on a somewhat
   complicated site, and the codex has gotten me pretty far, but I’m having _some_
   trouble.
 * I have a left sidebar on the site. Say I want to use a loop to put an excerpt
   or a list of posts on the left. I used a loop and set it to display just one 
   category. When I do this, it messes up my page content and displays the category
   of posts that I used on the sidebar in my content area. How do I “reset” what
   posts I have called for the sidebar so that I can call my page content for the
   content area?
 * Also, I have set a page for the homepage of the website. The site has two different
   blog-like sections, but they are both currently working as pages. What should
   I do with index.php (if anything)?
 * Thanks!

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

 *  [churchthemer](https://wordpress.org/support/users/churchthemer/)
 * (@churchthemer)
 * [17 years, 6 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/loop-issues/#post-876134)
 * If your using a custom query before the main loop you need to create a new query
   object.
 * Here’s a quick example using an unordered list to output posts from a query object:
 *     ```
       <ul class="side-posts">
       <?php
           $sidebar_query = new WP_Query("cat=42&showposts=10");
           $wp_query->in_the_loop = true;
           while ($sidebar_query->have_posts()) : $sidebar_query->the_post();
       ?>
               <li id="side-post-<?php the_ID(); ?>"><a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to <?php the_title_attribute(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></li>
           <?php endwhile; ?>
       </ul>
       ```
   
 * Where cat=42 you should replace with your category number. Showposts=10 controls
   how many posts to display. Hope that gets you started.
 *  Thread Starter [digitaljohn](https://wordpress.org/support/users/digitaljohn/)
 * (@digitaljohn)
 * [17 years, 6 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/loop-issues/#post-876168)
 * I’m having no problem displaying the posts from the categories I want to display.
   I can’t figure out the code to display page content after I’ve called a post 
   category on the left sidebar (higher in the structure).
 *  [churchthemer](https://wordpress.org/support/users/churchthemer/)
 * (@churchthemer)
 * [17 years, 6 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/loop-issues/#post-876194)
 * In the example above try changing this line:
 * `$sidebar_query = new WP_Query("cat=42&showposts=10");`
 * to
 * `$sidebar_query = new WP_Query('page_id=2');`
 * where 2 is the id of your page.

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

The topic ‘Loop Issues’ is closed to new replies.

 * 3 replies
 * 2 participants
 * Last reply from: [churchthemer](https://wordpress.org/support/users/churchthemer/)
 * Last activity: [17 years, 6 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/loop-issues/#post-876194)
 * Status: not resolved

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