thisismyalias

Thank you. That’s a good suggestion. I get weird spacing with the loop, and I’m sure I could fix it with some CSS modifications, but being a novice at all this, I don’t want to go down that path at the moment. Therefore, I’m going to figure out how to assign each child page data from the array statically.

I’m going to re-read that another 10 times, and maybe it’ll start to make sense. 🙂 Thank you.

Well it’s very basic. The departments are just using a custom page template, and the page’s name is the department and thus the qualifier for the loop. The support page is a child of the department page. That’s really it.

The solution is that I need to use wp_reset_query(); between the last } and ?>.

I see no way to edit my prior post. If I could I would delete all that code and just paste this portion:

<section class="span4 articles-list" style="margin-left:0;">
<!-- Best Practices  ID = 20-->
    <?php query_posts( array( 'category__and' => array($dept_id,20),
    'posts_per_page' => 5,
    'show_count' => 1 ) );
    $total_posts =$wp_query->found_posts;
    $myposts = $wp_query->post_count; 

    if ($myposts > 0) { ?>
        <h3><a href="/portal/?page_id=31?department_id=<?php echo $dept_id; ?>&department_name=<?php echo $deptname; ?>">Best Practices (<?php echo $total_posts; ?>)</a></h3>
        <?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
        <ul class="articles">
   	        <li class="article-entry standard"><h4><a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></h4>
            <span class="article-meta"><?php the_modified_date('F j, Y'); ?> in  <?php the_category(', ') ?> </span>
            <span class="like-count"><?php echo get_total_likes($post->ID); ?></span>
            </li>
        </ul>
	<?php endwhile;
	} ?>
</section>

After deleting out that portion of code the plugin works on the custom template. So it must be a query. Someone pointed me in the direction of <?php wp_reset_postdata(); ?> but adding it to the end of the template didn’t solve the problem. I’m still trying…

It’s an intranet site. I will paste the code of the custom template though, since it’s this template that isn’t working (I can make a custom template by copying an existing one and just renaming it, and it works).

<?php /*
*   Template Name: Department Template
Created 11/2014
*/
get_header(); ?>

<!-- Start of Page Container -->
<div class="page-container">
    <div class="container">
        <div class="row">

            <!-- start of page content -->
            <div class="span8 page-content">
            <div class="row separator">

                <?php

                if ( have_posts() ) :
                    while ( have_posts() ) :
                        the_post();
                        ?>
                        <article id="post-<?php the_ID(); ?>" <?php post_class("clearfix"); ?>>
                            <h1 class="post-title"><a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></h1>
                            <hr>
                            <?php
                            if ( has_post_thumbnail() )
                            {
                                the_post_thumbnail('std-thumbnail');
                            }

                            the_content();

                            // WordPress Link Pages
                            wp_link_pages(array('before' => '<div class="pages-nav clearfix">', 'after' => '</div>', 'next_or_number' => 'next'));
                            ?>
                        </article>
                        <?php
                    endwhile;

                endif;

                ?>
                <?php
				// get the department name's id# (passed through as page name parameter) so as to be able to indclude it in query array
				$deptname = wp_title('', false);
				$deptname=trim(strtolower($deptname));
				$dept_id = get_cat_ID($deptname);
				?>

<section class="span4 articles-list" style="margin-left:0;">
<!-- Best Practices  ID = 20-->
    <?php query_posts( array( 'category__and' => array($dept_id,20),
    'posts_per_page' => 5,
    'show_count' => 1 ) );
    $total_posts =$wp_query->found_posts;
    $myposts = $wp_query->post_count; 

    if ($myposts > 0) { ?>
        <h3><a href="/portal/?page_id=31?department_id=<?php echo $dept_id; ?>&department_name=<?php echo $deptname; ?>">Best Practices (<?php echo $total_posts; ?>)</a></h3>
        <?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
        <ul class="articles">
   	        <li class="article-entry standard"><h4><a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></h4>
            <span class="article-meta"><?php the_modified_date('F j, Y'); ?> in  <?php the_category(', ') ?> </span>
            <span class="like-count"><?php echo get_total_likes($post->ID); ?></span>
            </li>
        </ul>
	<?php endwhile;
	} ?>
</section>

<section class="span4 articles-list">
<!-- Policies  ID = 21-->
    <?php query_posts( array( 'category__and' => array($dept_id,21),
    'posts_per_page' => 5,
    'show_count' => 1 ) );
    $total_posts =$wp_query->found_posts;
    $myposts = $wp_query->post_count; 

    if ($myposts > 0) { ?>
        <h3><a href="/portal/?page_id=33?department_id=<?php echo $dept_id; ?>&department_name=<?php echo $deptname; ?>">Policies (<?php echo $total_posts; ?>)</a></h3>
        <?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
        <ul class="articles">
   	        <li class="article-entry standard"><h4><a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></h4>
            <span class="article-meta"><?php the_modified_date('F j, Y'); ?> in  <?php the_category(', ') ?> </span>
            <span class="like-count"><?php echo get_total_likes($post->ID); ?></span>
            </li>
        </ul>
	<?php endwhile;
    } ?>
</section>

<section class="span4 articles-list" style="margin-left:0;">
<!-- References ID = 19-->
    <?php query_posts( array( 'category__and' => array($dept_id,19),
    'posts_per_page' => 5,
    'show_count' => 1 ) );
    $total_posts =$wp_query->found_posts;
    $myposts = $wp_query->post_count; 

    if ($myposts > 0) { ?>
        <h3><a href="/portal/?page_id=35?department_id=<?php echo $dept_id; ?>&department_name=<?php echo $deptname; ?>">References (<?php echo $total_posts; ?>)</a></h3>
        <?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
        <ul class="articles">
   	        <li class="article-entry standard"><h4><a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></h4>
            <span class="article-meta"><?php the_modified_date('F j, Y'); ?> in  <?php the_category(', ') ?> </span>
            <span class="like-count"><?php echo get_total_likes($post->ID); ?></span>
            </li>
        </ul>
	<?php endwhile;
    } ?>
</section>

<section class="span4 articles-list">
<!-- Recipes  ID = 18-->
    <?php query_posts( array( 'category__and' => array($dept_id,18),
    'posts_per_page' => 5,
    'show_count' => 1 ) );
    $total_posts =$wp_query->found_posts;
    $myposts = $wp_query->post_count; 

    if ($myposts > 0) { ?>
        <h3><a href="/portal/?page_id=37?department_id=<?php echo $dept_id; ?>&department_name=<?php echo $deptname; ?>">Recipes (<?php echo $total_posts; ?>)</a></h3>
        <?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
        <ul class="articles">
            <li class="article-entry standard"><h4><a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></h4>
            <span class="article-meta"><?php the_modified_date('F j, Y'); ?> in  <?php the_category(', ') ?> </span>
            <span class="like-count"><?php echo get_total_likes($post->ID); ?></span>
            </li>
        </ul>
	<?php endwhile;
    } ?>
</section>

<section class="span4 articles-list">
<!-- add new subject area here as needed -->
</section>
</div>
</div>
            <!-- end of page content -->
            <?php get_sidebar('page'); ?>
        </div>
    </div>
</div>
<!-- End of Page Container -->
<?php get_footer(); ?>

I’ll update in the hopes that someone can add some insight.

As a test I created a new custom page template by copying an origional theme template. I took template-faq.php (origional template) and renamed it template-test.php. I changed nothing about the file other than it’s name.

I then created a new page using this template. The page inherits the page sidebar as expected. The plugin I’m using to create custom sidebars works on this new custom template.

The thing that is different about my custom template that *isn’t* working with the plugin is the code between <!– Start of Page Container –> and <!– End of Page Container –> (although the <?php get_sidebar(‘page’); ?> is the same).

I don’t understand how the code in the template would cause the sidebar plugin not to work…