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:

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…

Me encanta al norte de España. Yo, que vivo en Galicia y tengo Asturias a tiro de piedra, puedo decir que he recorrido de lo lindo ambas provincias (en coche,…

Japón es apasionante. Mi viaje por el país asiático fue de un mes, en el cual recorrí los alrededores de Nara, Osaka y Kioto, la gran Tokio, la impactante Hiroshima y la…

Tras las guías de enero, febrero, marzo, abril, mayo, junio, septiembre y octubre le toca el turno a noviembre. Tal y como hago en todas estas guías dedicadas a los…

Una guía con todo lo que visitar en Nueva Zelanda. Qué ver en isla norte y sur de Nueva Zelanda en viaje de turismo por Oceanía. Viajar a Nueva Zelanda…

Este artículo sobre lugares donde viajar en otoño en Europa y el mundo surge como complemento a mi mega guía de lugares donde ir en otoño en España para una…

En otra entrada sobre Armenia ya conté que este es el lugar donde empezó todo. En este artículo voy a centrarme en la parte más turística y voy a contar…

A la hora de escribir sobre viajes y turismo hay, al menos, dos formas de hacerlo: hablar de lo típico o salirse por la tangente. En el artículo que escribí…

A raíz de las luces de Navidad de Vigo y de su ubicación inmejorable para visitar las Rías Baixas, la ciudad olívica (donde además, vivo) se ha situado como uno…

Este artículo sobre los mejores miradores de la Ribeira Sacra y el cañón del Sil surge como apoyo de este otro artículo donde cuento con pelos y señales todo lo…

Uno de los principales atractivos que hay que ver en la Ribeira Sacra es el cañón del Sil, cuyos miradores ofrecen vistas únicas de su accidentada figura. Sin embargo, hay…

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.