Integrating a custom post type into a page hierarchy

Question

I'm creating a theme with a custom post type for team members, I've also got the following page structure:

about  <-- this is a page
about/team-members  <-- this is a page, lists all the team members
about/team-members/joe-bloggs  <-- this is a custom post type (team member) entry

The third structure here uses the about and team member pages, but goes on to use the custom post type slug to make it look like it's parents are team member and about. I've achieved this by setting the following options on the custom post type:

...
'rewrite' => array( 'slug' => 'about/team-members', 'with_front' => false)
...

This works great, however when I get down to the team member post level I no longer get the current-page, current-ancestor classes on the parent pages. I know why this is, because we're not technically on a pagea parent of those pages, however is there a way I can trick/fix/bodge so the pages DO apear as parents?

I had achieved this nicely by using pages for team members, however a custom post type was chosen instead for easy of use for the administrator.

Thanks guys + girls!

Answer 1

When Working with pages you can select a parent page and that value is saved as the parent page id number in the child page's post_parent field in the database.

in your case you are using a custom post type so you would need to create your own metabox for the parent page , something like:

/* Define the custom box */
add_action('add_meta_boxes', 'child_cpt_add_custom_box');

/* Adds a box to the main column on the custom post type edit screens */
function child_cpt_add_custom_box() {
    add_meta_box('child_cpt', __( 'My child_cpt parent'),'team_member_inner_custom_box','team_member');
}

/* Prints the box content */
function team_member_inner_custom_box() {
    global $post;
    // Use nonce for verification
    wp_nonce_field( plugin_basename(__FILE__), 'team_member_inner_custom_box' );
    echo 'Select the parent page';
    $mypages = get_pages();
    echo '<select name="cpt_parent">';
    foreach($mypages as $page){     
        echo '<option value="'.$page->ID.'"';
        if ($page->ID == $post->post_parent) {echo ' selected';}
        echo '>"'.$page->post_title.'</option>';
    }
    echo '</select>';
}
/* Do something with the data entered */
add_action('wp_insert_post_data', 'myplugin_save_postdata');

/* When the post is saved, saves our custom data */
function myplugin_save_postdata( $data, $postarr ) {
    global $post;
      // verify this came from the our screen and with proper authorization,
      // because save_post can be triggered at other times

      if ( !wp_verify_nonce( $_POST['team_member_inner_custom_box'], plugin_basename(__FILE__) ) )
          return $data;

      // verify if this is an auto save routine. 
      // If it is our form has not been submitted, so we dont want to do anything
      if ( defined('DOING_AUTOSAVE') && DOING_AUTOSAVE ) 
          return $data;
      // OK, we're authenticated: we need to find and save the data

     if ($post->post_type == "team_member")}
    $data['post_parent'] = $_POST['cpt_parent'];
}

    return $data;
}

it has nothing to do with register_post_type you are "tricking WordPress to thing that this is a child page of another post type (page). let me know if this helps.

Answer 2

I went with a custom walker to achieve something similar... avoids needs for custom fields, but all posts of a type have to sit below the same point in the page tree.

class Walker_Page_CustomPostTypeHack extends Walker_Page {
    function walk($elements, $max_depth) {
        $called_with = func_get_args();
        // current page is arg 3... see walk_page_tree for why
        $current_page = $called_with[3];

        // if there's no parent - see if we can find one.
        // some ACF options would be an easy way to make this configurable instad of constants
        if ($current_page === 0) {
            global $wp_query;
            $current_post = $wp_query->get_queried_object();
            switch ($current_post->post_type) {
                case 'course':
                    $current_page = POST_COURSES;
                    break;
                case 'project':
                    $current_page = POST_PROJECTS;
                    break;
                case 'story':
                    $current_page = POST_STORIES;
                    break;
            }
        }

        // now pass on into parent
        $called_with[3] = $current_page;
        return call_user_func_array(array('parent', 'walk'), $called_with);
    }

}