Show post excerpts with title and image attachment thumbnail - php

Question

I am having trouble getting the image attachment to show by the title & excerpt on a Wordpress page in a list. I am using a new WP_Query to generate the list, consisting of 3 posts, from certain categories. Inside the loop, I'm trying to get the first image of each post, retrieving their image IDs with a 'get_children' array (the posts do not have featured images, so I can't use the_post_thumbnail). Using console.log, I can see that I am at least getting the image url for the first item in the list, but not for the others. And even with the one I am getting, I can't get it to display using wp_get_attachment_thumb_file(). Here's the code I have so far:
<div class="inner-left">
<ul class="blog-posts-ul">
<?php
global $wp_query;
$wp_query = new WP_Query(array('order' => 'DESC', 'posts_per_page' => 3, 'cat' => '21,23,689,741,1589'));
if (have_posts()) : while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
<li>
<?php $attachment = get_children( array('post_parent' => get_the_ID(), 'post_type' => 'attachment', 'post_mime_type' => 'image' ) );
if ( $attachment ) {
$attachment = current( $attachment );
$image_url = wp_get_attachment_thumb_url( $attachment->ID );
$attachment_id = attachment_url_to_postid( $image_url );
echo '<script>console.log("thumb: "' . $image_url . ')</script>';
}; ?>
<?php the_title(); ?><?php the_excerpt(); ?>
<?php wp_get_attachment_thumb_file( $attachment->ID ); ?>
</li>
<?php endwhile; endif; ?>
</ul>
<?php // Reset Query
wp_reset_query(); ?>
</div><!-- inner-left -->
The test site is at http://testsite.humortimes.com/ if you want to have a look. Scroll down, it's formatted as 3 squares, below the 'Latest Humor Times Faux News Headlines' section. Right now, it's not formatted very well, I plan on having two columns, there's just one showing.
Any help would be appreciated. Thank you.

Answer 1

Stop using console log and start using var_dump ($image_url) ; that will print whatever you have directly on that element.
I dont quite get why you cant use post thumbnail?

Answer 2

After a lot of frustration, I found this nifty function that does just what I want. It queries the database to find the first image of the post, which I guess is the key I was missing. It also tests for a featured image first, so that's taken care of as well. I put the function in my child function file, and just call it when needed on a page.
If you use it, be aware you need to add $size = 'thumbnail'; because, although her description says it'll return a thumbnail, it was returning full size images. This variable is used throughout the function, though, so you just need to give it a value.
Thanks, Amberweinberg!