Get latest post on blog page - php

Question

So, I am looking for a way to get the latest post in order to display it in a different way than the rest of the posts. In the settings I have my "Blog" page to display the posts, as generally everybody do.
The first thing I tried (an answer from another question), was to use the normal loop, I mean, the if (have_posts())...while(have_posts())..etc. And above that IF, place another IF just to get the latest post and through that way I could style my last post. But as I have pagination, on each page, the latest post, is actually the latest post from that page and not the real latest post. Hope this was understandable.
My second try, was to exclude from the normal loop the latest post, and for that I used a snippet from an article which explains how to exclude the latest post and keeping the pagination working using pre_get_posts and found_posts so my code was as follow:
add_action('pre_get_posts', 'myprefix_query_offset', 1 );
function myprefix_query_offset(&$query) {
//Before anything else, make sure this is the right query...
if ( ! $query->is_home() ) {
return;
}
//First, define your desired offset...
$offset = 1;
//Next, determine how many posts per page you want (we'll use WordPress's settings)
$ppp = get_option('posts_per_page');
//Next, detect and handle pagination...
if ( $query->is_paged ) {
//Manually determine page query offset (offset + current page (minus one) x posts per page)
$page_offset = $offset + ( ($query->query_vars['paged']-1) * $ppp );
//Apply adjust page offset
$query->set('offset', $page_offset );
}
else {
//This is the first page. Just use the offset...
$query->set('offset',$offset);
}
}
add_filter('found_posts', 'myprefix_adjust_offset_pagination', 1, 2 );
function myprefix_adjust_offset_pagination($found_posts, $query) {
//Define our offset again...
$offset = 1;
//Ensure we're modifying the right query object...
if ( $query->is_home() ) {
//Reduce WordPress's found_posts count by the offset...
return $found_posts - $offset;
}
return $found_posts;
}
So far so good, this code is working and it's excluding the latest post and the pagination is working, but now my problem is, how do I get the latest post? I tried to use wp_query above the loop in my home.php to get that single latest post but realized that pre_get_posts overrides the wp_query?
How can I solve this and get the latest post? Do I have to do the opposite? I mean, first get the latest post and then create a custom loop for the rest of the posts, but how to manage the pagination?
This is my html so far in home.php
<div class="blog-list">
<div class="blog-item featured-item">
// display latest post here
</div>
<?php if ( have_posts() ): ?>
<div class="teaser-inner mb-4">
<div class="row">
<?php while ( have_posts() ): ?>
<?php the_post(); ?>
<div class="blog-item col-md-6 mb-3 mb-sm-5">
<div class="row">
<div class="col-6 col-md-4">
<?php $img_url = get_the_post_thumbnail_url(get_the_ID(),'full'); ?>
<a href="<?php echo esc_url( get_permalink() ); ?>" class="blog-link">
<div class="blog-item-img bg-cover" style="background-image:url(<?php echo esc_url($img_url); ?>)"></div>
</a>
</div>
<div class="col-6 col-md-8">
<?php the_title(); ?>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<?php endwhile; ?>
</div>
</div>
<div class="blog-pagination">
<?php echo paginate_links(); ?>
</div>
<?php endif; ?>
</div>
Any clue is appreciated.

Answer 1

Your pagination system is working fine. What you could do, it retrieve the latest post with wp_get_recent_posts:
$latestPosts = wp_get_recent_posts(['numberposts' => 1]);
$latestPost = $latestPosts ? current($latestPosts) : null;
Then in your div, you can display the information of your latest post with $latestPost.
<?php if ($latestPost): ?>
<div class="blog-item featured-item">
// display latest post here
</div>
<?php endif; ?>
For the above to work, you need to alter the pre_get_posts a little bit to make sure to only alter the query if it's the main query:
if (! $query->is_home() || ! $query->is_main_query()) {
return;
}