How to extract and display a post by ID in WordPress? - php

Question

So, I have this special page template in WordPress. I want to use it to display a handful of posts by ID (which I will specify).
Something like
<?php displayPost(10); ?>
and it will have the posts thumbnail, title and some values from the post meta which I will use.
After searching and sweating for hours, this is what I have
<?php
class episodeDetails
{
public $id;
function episodeTitle(){
$title = get_the_title($this->id);
$mykey_values = get_post_custom_values( 'episode', $this->id);
foreach ( $mykey_values as $key => $value ) {
return $title." : ".value;
}
}
function episodeImage(){
return get_the_post_thumbnail_url($this->id);
}
function episodeLink(){
return get_the_permalink($this->id);
}
function episodeMp3(){
$mykey_values = get_post_custom_values( 'enclosure', $this->id);
foreach ( $mykey_values as $key => $value ) {
return strtok($value, "\n");
}
}
}
$episode = new episodeDetails;
$episode->id="480";
?>
<div class="list-videos">
<div class="list-videos-image">
<img width="404" height="404" src="<?php echo $episode->episodeImage(); ?>" class="attachment-portfolio-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="<?php echo $episode->episodeTitle(); ?>">
</div>
<div class="list-videos-text">
<?php echo $episode->episodeTitle(); ?><br><a class="button" href="<?php echo $episode->episodeLink(); ?>" rel="bookmark"><i class="fas fa-play"></i> Play Now</a> <a class="button" href="<?php echo $episode->episodeMp3(); ?>" download=""><i class="fas fa-download"></i> Download MP3</a>
</div>
</div>
Now, it does display what I want but I feel that it can be done in a better and easier way. My way would require me to copy and paste the whole block of HTML again and again for every additional post. I want to simplify it and I am looking whether there is a concise way instead of my long and complicated HTML part which I feel is recursive.
Thank you

Answer 1

To strictly answer your question: just use a foreach loop.
// Your class declaration to be put here...
// Then declare your IDs
$episodeIds = array(480, 481, 482, ...);
// And finally loop over them
foreach($episodeIds as $id) {
$episode = new episodeDetails;
$episode->id=$id;
?><div class="list-videos">
<div class="list-videos-image">
<img width="404" height="404" src="<?php echo $episode->episodeImage(); ?>" class="attachment-portfolio-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="<?php echo $episode->episodeTitle(); ?>">
</div>
<div class="list-videos-text">
<?php echo $episode->episodeTitle(); ?><br><a class="button" href="<?php echo $episode->episodeLink(); ?>" rel="bookmark"><i class="fas fa-play"></i> Play Now</a> <a class="button" href="<?php echo $episode->episodeMp3(); ?>" download=""><i class="fas fa-download"></i> Download MP3</a>
</div>
</div><?php
}
Or you can wrap the template part of the code in a function (like your example displayPost(...)) and then call that function within the loop.
// Your class declaration to be put here...
// The display method gets the $episode object as parameter
function displayPost($episode) {
?><div class="list-videos">
<div class="list-videos-image">
<img width="404" height="404" src="<?php echo $episode->episodeImage(); ?>" class="attachment-portfolio-thumbnail wp-post-image" alt="<?php echo $episode->episodeTitle(); ?>">
</div>
<div class="list-videos-text">
<?php echo $episode->episodeTitle(); ?><br><a class="button" href="<?php echo $episode->episodeLink(); ?>" rel="bookmark"><i class="fas fa-play"></i> Play Now</a> <a class="button" href="<?php echo $episode->episodeMp3(); ?>" download=""><i class="fas fa-download"></i> Download MP3</a>
</div>
</div><?php
}
// Then declare your IDs
$episodeIds = array(480, 481, 482, ...);
// And finally loop over them
foreach($episodeIds as $id) {
$episode = new episodeDetails;
$episode->id=$id;
displayPost($episode);
}