Order By Custom Field – Strange Problem

In what template file do you need this? The front page?

Try it without query_posts and with this in your theme’s functions.php file:

function my_post_queries( $query ) {
	// not an admin page and is the main query
	if ( !is_admin() && $query->is_main_query() ) {
		// category and search pages
		if ( is_category() || is_search() ) {
			add_filter( 'posts_orderby', 'add_featured_orderby' );
		}
	}
}
add_action( 'pre_get_posts', 'my_post_queries' );

function add_featured_orderby( $orderby ) {
	global $wpdb;

	// get meta listing_type -> featured post ids
	$args = array(
		'meta_key' => 'listing_type',
		'meta_value' => 'Featured',
		'fields' => 'ids',
		'order' => 'DESC',
		'orderby' => 'date',
		'posts_per_page' => -1,
	);

	if(is_category())
		$args['cat'] = get_query_var('cat');

	$posts= get_posts( $args );

	if ( $posts ) {

		// add custom ordering
		$sql = ' CASE';
		$i = count( $posts );
		foreach ( $posts as $post ) {
			$sql .= " WHEN $wpdb->posts.ID = $post THEN $i";
			$i--;
		}
		$sql .= ' ELSE 0 END DESC, ';
		echo $sql;

		$orderby = $sql . $orderby;
	}

	return $orderby;
}

This will order the posts with a custom field listing_type with value “Featured” at the top on category and search archive pages.

btw:
consider creating a child theme instead of editing your theme directly – if you upgrade the theme all your modifications will be lost.

Ah, I left some testing code. Remove this:

echo $sql;

If ‘platinum’ is also a value of the ‘listing_type’ custom field you can use this:

function my_post_queries( $query ) {
	// not an admin page and is the main query
	if ( !is_admin() && $query->is_main_query() ) {
		// category and search pages
		if ( is_category() || is_tag() || is_tax() || is_search() ) {
			add_filter( 'posts_orderby', 'add_featured_orderby' );
		}
	}
}
add_action( 'pre_get_posts', 'my_post_queries' );

function add_featured_orderby( $orderby ) {
	global $wpdb;

	$args = array(
		'meta_key' => 'listing_type',
		'fields' => 'ids',
		'orderby' => 'rand',
		'posts_per_page' => -1,
	);

	if ( is_category() || is_tag() || is_tax() ) {
		$obj = get_queried_object();
		$tax_query = array(
			array(
				'taxonomy' => $obj->taxonomy,
				'field' => 'id',
				'terms' => $obj->term_id,
			)
		);
		$args['tax_query'] = $tax_query;
	}

	$platinum_args = $args + array( 'meta_value' => 'platinum' );
	$featured_args = $args + array( 'meta_value' => 'featured' );

	$platinum = (array) get_posts( $platinum_args );
	$featured = (array) get_posts( $featured_args );

	$posts = array_unique( array_merge( $platinum, $featured ) );

	if ( $posts ) {

		// add custom ordering
		$sql = ' CASE';
		$i = count( $posts );
		foreach ( $posts as $post ) {
			$sql .= " WHEN $wpdb->posts.ID = $post THEN $i";
			$i--;
		}
		$sql .= ' ELSE 0 END DESC, ';

		$orderby = $sql . $orderby;
	}

	return $orderby;
}

This will order the custom field posts randomly and the rest by post date.

This code will now also use this order on custom taxonomy and tag pages.

Just remove the taxonomies you don’t want in:

if ( is_category() || is_tag() || is_tax() || is_search() ) {
			add_filter( 'posts_orderby', 'add_featured_orderby' );
		}

You’re welcome 🙂