Using WP Show Posts

Adding post lists and grids to your Site couldn’t be easier than with the WP Show Posts plugin. Dispatch uses the Free version to display posts on the Front page and in the Sidebars. Of course with a little Flint Skin CSS treatment.

Head off to Dashboard > WP Show Posts > All Lists. Within are six lists:

• Align
• Standard
• Sidebar
• Header
• Simple
• Simple Sidebar

Each of them have very particular settings required to match the demo content you see here. Changing those settings may affect the way the post is displayed, and not necessarily for the better. So please work on a duplicate or make a note before changing.

Note: the name of the List has no relevance to the different styles displayed.

General ( and important ) information

Before we go into the detail let’s cover some basic and very important information.

Advanced Settings

For the purpose of the demo content a couple of the Lists are using Advanced Settings. First off the Standard List is using Ascending Order (Default: Descending).  Secondly the Simple List is using Offset, so it omits the first 4 posts. You may want to put these back to default if you’re not intending to replace them.

Duplicating WP Show Posts List

So we have four lists, and we want to make a new Standard list with a different category. The easiest way is to use one of the Duplicate Post plugins in the WordPress repository. Simple hey. And it works for all post types including GP Elements. Awesome. Note: When making a duplicate you are generally given two options. Clone and New Draft. I advise using the New Draft as some people have reported issues when using Clone.

 

List: Standard

This is the standard WP Show Post list that has the same custom styling applied to the GP Blog:

20 cosas que ver en Vigo en un día, por un habitante de la ciudad, una de las principales urbes de las Rías Baixas y de Galicia. Algunas personas suelen…

Las islas Canarias son uno de los territorios más variados, sorprendentes y placenteros de España: cada isla tiene rincones que provocarían la envidia de sus vecinas. En este artículo voy…

Es un hecho: a Vigo se la visita (en verano) porque se quiere ir a islas Cíes o porque se está de ruta por Rías Baixas. No ocurre lo mismo…

Como madrileño, una de las preguntas más complejas que me hacen con frecuencia es cuáles son los imprescindibles que ver en Madrid en 3 días. Mi respuesta casi siempre es…

Una guía de ruta por las Rías Baixas en 7 días, 6 itinerarios visuales y prácticos para elegir qué ver en las Rías Baixas (un lugar plagado de atractivos. Y…

En mi artículo con las mejores cabañas en los árboles de Galicia (que está bien surtido de este tipo de alojamientos), ya dediqué una sección a las cabañas en Pontevedra….

Bienvenido a Un viaje creativo. Si has entrado a este artículo es porque estás buscando lugares singulares insólitos de Galicia, la comunidad donde vivo (concretamente en Vigo). Y, en efecto,…

En esta guía voy a mostrar todo lo que ver en Cangas de Onís en un día, una de las puertas de entrada a Picos de Europa. Aunque el pueblo…

Viviendo en Galicia, Asturias es una de las comunidades que tengo más cerca para recorrer. Aparte de las guías de ruta por Asturias en 3 días, 5 días y 7…

En el extremo sur de Gran Canaria, la isla con forma de vieira de peregrino (no puedo evitar esta comparación tras varios años viviendo en Santiago de Compostela -ahora vivo…

Una guía con un muestrario de sitios a donde ir en Semana Santa: propuestas de lugares donde viajar en Semana Santa en España, Europa y el mundo. En esta guía,…

Para quienes estén pensando en sitios donde viajar en verano en España (o en otra época, como otoño), aquí esta esta guía de rutas en coche por España para viajes…

This is how the list is displayed within the Content area just by adding the WP Show Post Shortcode. Here follows the basic styling changes that have been made.

Content Wrap (WPSP Only)

Using a custom Hook Element the Post article content is now wrapped within a DIV container. This container carries a class of wpsp-content-wrap for styling. This wrap is present on all WP Show Posts that are output inside Dispatch.

Featured Image

The featured image has a fixed height to match the layout. This is achieved using this CSS:

.generate-columns-container article .inside-article img,  .wp-show-posts-image img {
    height: 180px;
    width: 100%;
    -o-object-fit: cover !important;
    object-fit: cover !important;
}

You can edit the height property to suit, or remove the CSS it entirely if you want to use your own sizes.

Meta above title

This is achieved using a flex box on the Entry Header. Again this applied to the GP Blog:

.generate-columns-container article .entry-header, .wp-show-posts-entry-header {
    display: -webkit-box;
    display: -ms-flexbox;
    display: flex;
    -webkit-box-orient: vertical;
    -webkit-box-direction: reverse;
    -ms-flex-direction: column-reverse;
    flex-direction: column-reverse;
}

Entry Title forced to 2 lines

The entry title always displays a minimum and maximum of 2 lines. This mantains the across row alignment. Again this is applied to GP Blog. The ex unit is used to define the number of lines visible. The lines are set by defining the line-height and setting the height to as many mutiples as you require lines. e.g up the height to 7.5ex will create three lines.

.generate-columns-container article .entry-header .entry-title, .wp-show-posts article .wp-show-posts-entry-title {
    line-height: 2.5ex;
    height: 5ex;
    overflow: hidden;
    text-overflow: ellipsis;
}

 

List: Align

Designed for a single column list this displays the content the image to the left and content to the right. This is subtly different to just resizing the image in the WP Show Posts list settings and aligning it left. Thanks to the Content Wrap we added (above) the content will never wrap around the image. On mobile it just stacks.

To add one of these your posts requires a little markup. And is done like so:

<div class="wpsp-align">shortcode_goes_here</div>

 

Lists: Sidebar

In the right had sidebar you can see the Sidebar list. This List is set to 1 column and only displays the Featured Image, Title and Category. This is designed for Widgets, a narrow column or as part of a grid (like in our next List).

To add this style the Widget requires a CSS Class of:

wpsp-card

Dispatch comes with Widget Classes Plugin installed. This provides this function.

 

List: Header

The Header list as seen on the Front Page requires a list containing only 5 posts. And can accomodate most of the content elements. Which are only displayed on the large leader post.

To add this style the Header Element requires the following element classes:

wpsp-grid wpsp-card

List: Simple

This is output using the wpsp-card inserted into a containing DIV like so:

<div class="wpsp-card">shortcode goes here</dib>

 

List: Simple Sidebar

Nothing fancy here,  just a list being output using the a Widget in the sidebar.