It’s doable, but would be very surprised if anyone has built this !
@robin-w, @joejozwowski
i found the code to create a random post link that you can use as a reference , when creating a random topic link
got it from http://cazue.com/articles/wordpress-create-a-random-post-button-2013
add_action('init','random_post');
function random_post() {
global $wp;
$wp->add_query_var('random');
add_rewrite_rule('random/?$', 'index.php?random=1', 'top');
}
add_action('template_redirect','random_template');
function random_template() {
if (get_query_var('random') == 1) {
$posts = get_posts('post_type=post&orderby=rand&numberposts=1');
foreach($posts as $post) {
$link = get_permalink($post);
}
wp_redirect($link,307);
exit;
}
}
link to show
<a href="/?random=1">Random Post</a>
creating a menu link , idk how to bring that link up in the menu
@robkk thanks for that, so to make this a topic I think you you would just change
$posts = get_posts('post_type=post&orderby=rand&numberposts=1');
to
$posts = get_posts('post_type=bbp_get_topic_post_type()&orderby=rand&numberposts=1');
although could be
$posts = get_posts('post_type="bbp_get_topic_post_type()"&orderby=rand&numberposts=1');
never sure of some of these without playing
idk how to bring that link up in the menu
For a ‘button’ (actually it would just be a link) you just paste it in text mode onto whtever page. in php, you just echo it
echo '<a href="/?random=1">Random Post</a>' ;
on a menu item, you just at it as a link dashboard>appearance>menus and look for links
Sweet… do I could just put the: “/?random=1” in the URL field of a menu item and BLAM
Fantastic.
Say I wanted to pull from two specific forum topics, how would I incorporate that?
Sweet… do I could just put the: “/?random=1″ in the URL field of a menu item and BLAM
Fantastic.
try it??
if not try the other ways robin said.
Say I wanted to pull from two specific forum topics, how would I incorporate that?
In your menu? Come back and I’ll help.
ok… so I pasted the following into my functions.php page:
add_action('init','random_post');
function random_post() {
global $wp;
$wp->add_query_var('random');
add_rewrite_rule('random/?$', 'index.php?random=1', 'top');
}
add_action('template_redirect','random_template');
function random_template() {
if (get_query_var('random') == 1) {
$posts = get_posts('post_type=post&orderby=rand&numberposts=1');
foreach($posts as $post) {
$link = get_permalink($post);
}
wp_redirect($link,307);
exit;
}
}
And then in my menu I created a LINK element and pasted this into the URL field:
/?random=1
And all I get is a blank page
BTW.. I tried both versions of the $posts = get_posts() calls.
HEY!
I just realized that you are calling $wp.
If the prefix for my database was changed, would this have anything to do with why it is not working?
ok, need to work out if menu issue or function issue
So eliminate function by creating a test page and putting
echo '<a href="/?random=1">Random Post</a>' ;
onto the test page and confirm it works.
could I put that in a page or post, rather than the code?
Absolutely you can, once in the edit screen of the page, switch to ‘text’ from ‘visual’ (top right of the content box), and paste
echo '<a href="/?random=1">Random Post</a>' ;
in there
Do I need to remove the functions in the function.php page? Because all I am getting is a blank white page.
what is the theme you are using??
are you using wordpress seo or a cache plugin like w3 total cache??
@joejozwowski @robin-w i think stephen already cracked this
i was browsing on how to make custom views and yeah stumbled upon this.
there is a random topic view in his code.
https://gist.github.com/ntwb/8167699
Ha! Yes, I was messing about with that yesterday thinking it would solve the issue here but it does not 😉 If you add the bbPress views widget to a sidebar you will see all those views in the gist you linked above, you can also add the shortcode [bbp-single-view id="single-random-topic"] to a page it it will display the ‘topic’ list template with a single random topic.
So it can do all that ^^^, but it will not work as a ‘button’ so you can’t have a button with ‘Click this for a random topic’ 🙁
Something like this should work though:
https://gist.github.com/ntwb/ca87b9b75a42215b2889
function ntwb_bbpress_random_single_topic() {
if ( bbp_has_topics( array( 'orderby' => 'rand', 'posts_per_page' => 1 ) ) ) {
while ( bbp_topics() ) : bbp_the_topic();
?>
<a class="bbp-topic-permalink" href="<?php bbp_topic_permalink(); ?>"><?php bbp_topic_title(); ?></a>
<?php
endwhile;
}
}
// Hook into action
add_action('bbp_template_before_lead_topic','ntwb_bbpress_random_single_topic');
// Add it as a shortcode [ntwb-bbpress-random-single-topic]
add_shortcode('ntwb-bbpress-random-single-topic', 'ntwb_bbpress_random_single_topic');
I’m hooking it into just before the ‘lead topic’ (bbp_template_before_lead_topic) in the example above but you could hook that anywhere you would like.
I also add it as a shortcode [ntwb-bbpress-random-single-topic] for use that way.
Make any changes you want to the HTML, I am just doing it as a HTML a anchor link with the permalink bbp_topic_permalink() and the link title as the topic title bbp_topic_title(). Change all that HTML code to a button, remove <?php bbp_topic_title(); ?> and replace with Random Topic or whatever takes your fancy.
Stephen, Now, Obviously, I would plunk that function in my functions.php page, but the two main things that I would like to specify is:
Let me think about the menu solution for a bit….
e.g. To include forum ID’s 2, 5, 12 and 14 add the post_parent__in
if ( bbp_has_topics( array( 'orderby' => 'rand', 'posts_per_page' => 1, 'post_parent__in' => array( 3, 5, 12, 14 ) ) ) ) {
e.g. To exclude forum ID’s 7, 11, 19 and 21add the post_parent__not_in
if ( bbp_has_topics( array( 'orderby' => 'rand', 'posts_per_page' => 1, 'post_parent__not_in' => array( 7, 9, 11, 19 ) ) ) ) {
I have used Stephen’s code above and it works perfectly.
However, I have 8 forums on my site so if I wanted to add a random button for each separate forum that only selects topics from that forum would I have to create 8 different function ntwb_bbpress_random_single_topic() in my .php and include only a single forum ID every time or is there a better way to implement this? Also, how and where would I add the shortcodes so that they only show on the relevant forum?
@ johnskennedy You’re spot on, creating 8 functions is one way to do that, you’d need to make sure that each function name is unique.
That said, the above is one way, another way is to use some conditional logic with some if/else statements which is a little trickier, possibly more fun though to update the function in this way even 😉
See these codex docs for sme very initial hints:
• https://codex.wordpress.org/Conditional_Tags
• https://codex.bbpress.org/bbpress-conditional-tags/
Someone may need it, so I’ll update it.
function hhj_bbp_random_topic() {
global $post;
$args = array('post_type' => 'topic','orderby' => 'rand','post_status'=>'publish','posts_per_page' => '10');
$myposts = get_posts( $args );
foreach( $myposts as $post ) : setup_postdata($post); ?>
<a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a><br/>
<?php
endforeach;
wp_reset_postdata();
}
add_shortcode('hhj_bbp_random_topic', 'hhj_bbp_random_topic');
ref.
https://wordpress.stackexchange.com/questions/50761/when-to-use-wp-query-query-posts-and-pre-get-posts
