Random Featured event – Custom Widget

[Paul]

Im trying to display a random event from the featured event category on a site ive built. Ive followed the custom widget tutorial and have this code

$posts = tribe_get_events(array( 'eventDisplay'=>'upcoming','numResults'=>1,'orderby'=>'rand','tribe_events_cat'=>'featured' ));

which only works if i remove the eventDisplay part.

Is there a way to display 1 random upcoming event from a specific category?
Cheers

[Rob]

Hey Paul. Interesting question; let me see if Jonah has any ideas when he hits the forum this afternoon.

[Jonah]

Hey Paul,

I don’t think you can use the ‘tribe_events_cat’ as an argument. Try tax_query instead: http://codex.wordpress.org/Class_Reference/WP_Query#Taxonomy_Parameters

You can also just use a regular WP_Query instead of tribe_get_events too.

[Paul]

Hey Jonah,
Thanks for the reply. Im struggling to get this working. Can you give me some pointers.

This is what i have, but isnt working

if( function_exists( 'tribe_get_events' ) ) {
$posts = tribe_get_events(array(
'eventDisplay'=>'upcoming',
'numResults'=>1,
'orderby'=>'rand',
'tax_query'=> array(
'taxonomy' => 'tribe_events_cat',
'field' => 'slug',
'terms'=> 'featured',
)));

$template = TribeEventsTemplates::getTemplateHierarchy('widget-featured-display');
}

[Paul]

Im unsure how to replace tribe_get_events with WP_Query correctly.

[Jonah]

Hey Paul, you simply need to execute a WP_Query – you can find an example of usage here: http://codex.wordpress.org/Class_Reference/WP_Query#Usage

You’ll want to pass in tribe_events for the post_type and your category in a tax_query.

[Paul]

Hi Jonah,
Ive gone down the WP_Query route as suggested, but still finding the same issue. I can get a random event from the featured category if i leave out ‘eventDisplay’=>’upcoming’ but that allows past events to display, which i dont want.

Heres the query


$featured_query = new WP_Query( array(
'post_type' => 'tribe_events',
'posts_per_page' => '1',
'orderby' => 'rand',
'eventDisplay'=>'upcoming',
'tax_query'=> array(
array(
'taxonomy' => 'tribe_events_cat',
'field' => 'slug',
'terms' => 'featured',
'operator' => 'IN'
)
)
)
);

while ( $featured_query->have_posts() ) : $featured_query->the_post();


This code outputs the next event from the featured category, but the orderby rand seems to be ignored or overridden by eventDisplay. Am i missing something obvious here?
Appreciate any help you can give.

[Jonah]

Hi Paul, I’m going to get someone else to help you. Stay tuned.

[Joey Kudish]

Hey Paul,

The following code should get you all set: https://gist.github.com/1856644 I’ve tested and it does exactly what you want.

Let us know if you have any other questions
Joey

[Paul]

Hi Joey,
Thanks for your input on this, really appreciate your help. Unfortunately that code isn’t working for me.
Heres what i have http://db.tt/r0mVAOmf as before it is just outputting the next featured event.

Having die(var_dump($post)); in there caused an error.

Have i got something wrong?

[Joey Kudish]

Hi Paul,

the die(var_dump($post)); was just there as an example, it basically output all of the contents of the $post variable.

A few notes on your full code:

— no need for that global $sp_ecp in the top, that’s from an old (pre 2.0) version of The Events Calendar
— sp_get_option is also a function from the old (pre 2.0) version of The Evetns Calendar
— you don’t need the query_posts before your first query since you are already at the homepage, the default query will already query for that page
— you can use the_permalink() and the_title() instead of using the $post variable
— no need to check if the has_post_thumbnail function exists unless you plan on running a pre 2.9 version of WordPress
— you should use wp_reset_query() instead of wp_reset_postdata()
— where you have upcoming-events in the sidebar it doesn’t fully make sense you’re checking if there’s a dynamic_sidebar called ‘Homepage Upcoming Events’ but if it does, you’re not doing anything; I’ve removed it from my example for now
— I’ve changed featured-event to a instead of a since it wasn’t a list

Anyways, none of these little things were why the query wasn’t working for you. In fact it was because setting ‘eventDisplay’ => ‘upcoming’ was overwriting the ‘orderby’ => ‘rand’ argument. So instead you need to use the ‘meta_query’ and fetch upcoming events by their ‘_EventStartDate’

here’s the corrected example with all the code changes I specified above: https://gist.github.com/1860947

I tested with a few events in the featured category (some being past and others in the present) and it worked as expected for me. This should definitely get you going.

Cheers
Joey

[Joey Kudish]

Woops, one of my comments got mangled, I meant:

– I’ve changed featured-event to a div instead of a ul since it wasn’t a list

[Paul]

Hi Joey,
That last update did the trick, fantastic, thanks for your help with this.

Cheers
Paul

[Rob]

Excellent! Thanks for confirming, Paul. Glad we were able to help you out here. If you need anything else down the road please let us know.

[Support Droid]

This topic has not been active for quite some time and will now be closed.

If you still need assistance please simply open a new topic (linking to this one if necessary)
and one of the team will be only too happy to help.

[Author]

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