paginate posts on admin page

Question

I've created a plugin that calls a list of posts and grabs external API data. I am using get_posts to grab the list (because I need to feed the array of links into the API query)

For whatever reason, any attempt at pagination either fails completely or loads the same posts. Since nothing I've done has worked, I've removed all the pagination at this point.

add_action('admin_menu' , 'blgs_dashboard_snap'); 

function blgs_dashboard_snap() {

    add_dashboard_page( 'Social Metrics', 'Social Metrics', 'read', 'blgs-social-metrics-snap', 'blgs_metrics_page');
}

function blgs_metrics_page() {


echo '<div class="wrap">';
echo '<div id="icon-blgs-metrics" class="icon32">';
echo '<br />';
echo '</div>';

echo '<h2>Social Metrics Dashboard</h2>';
echo '<div id="bg_social_page">';

        echo '
                  <ul class="headers">
                    <li class="post_date">Publish Date</th>
                    <li class="post_title">Post Title</th>
                    <li class="social_icon social_total"><img src="'.plugins_url( '/img/twitter.png', __FILE__ ).'" title="Twitter" alt="Twitter"></li>
                    <li class="social_icon social_total"><img src="'.plugins_url( '/img/gplus.png', __FILE__ ).'" title="Google Plus" alt="Google Plus"></li>
                    <li class="social_icon social_total"><img src="'.plugins_url( '/img/stumble.png', __FILE__ ).'" title="StumbleUpon" alt="StumbleUpon"></li>
                    <li class="social_icon social_total"><img src="'.plugins_url( '/img/linkedin.png', __FILE__ ).'" title="LinkedIn" alt="LinkedIn"></li>
                    <li class="social_icon social_total"><img src="'.plugins_url( '/img/delicious.png', __FILE__ ).'" title="Delicious" alt="Delicious"></li>
                    <li class="social_icon social_total"><img src="'.plugins_url( '/img/reddit.png', __FILE__ ).'" title="Reddit" alt="Reddit"></li>
                    <li class="social_icon social_total"><img src="'.plugins_url( '/img/digg.png', __FILE__ ).'" title="Digg" alt="Digg"></li>
                    <li class="social_icon social_total"><img src="'.plugins_url( '/img/facebook.png', __FILE__ ).'" title="Facebook" alt="Facebook"></li>
                    <li class="fb_total fb_comm">Comments</li>
                    <li class="fb_total fb_like">Likes</li>
                    <li class="fb_total fb_share">Shares</li>
                  </ul>

        ';

        global $post;
            $args = array(
            'post_type'         => 'post',
            'post_status'       => 'publish',
            'order'             => 'DESC',
            'orderby'           => 'date',
            'posts_per_page'    => 15,
        );


        $dash_posts = get_posts( $args );
        // build out table

        foreach( $dash_posts as $post ) :   setup_postdata($post);

            $link   = get_permalink();
            $grab   = urlencode($link);

            $request    = new WP_Http;
            $url        = 'http://api.sharedcount.com/?url='.$grab.'';
            $response   = wp_remote_get ( $url );

            if( is_wp_error( $response ) ) {
               echo '<p>There was an error getting the data. Please try again later.</p>';
            } else {
                $output = json_decode( $response['body'] ); 
            }


            $title  = get_the_title();
            $edit   = get_edit_post_link( $post->ID, $title );
            $date   = get_the_date('m/d/y');

            // get my numbers
            $stumble    = $output->StumbleUpon;
            $reddit     = $output->Reddit;
            $delicious  = $output->Delicious;
            $gplus      = $output->GooglePlusOne;
            $twitter    = $output->Twitter;
            $digg       = $output->Diggs;
            $linkedin   = $output->LinkedIn;

            // facebook sub counts
            $fb_total   = $output->Facebook->total_count;
            $fb_cmbox   = $output->Facebook->commentsbox_count;
            $fb_click   = $output->Facebook->click_count;
            $fb_comms   = $output->Facebook->comment_count;
            $fb_like    = $output->Facebook->like_count;
            $fb_share   = $output->Facebook->share_count;

            // set even odd for some fancy

            $altrows = ( ' altrow' != $altrows ) ? ' altrow' : '';

            // now output the data
            echo '

                  <ul class="numbers'.$altrows.'">
                    <li class="post_date">'.$date.'</li>
                    <li class="post_title"><a href="'.$edit.'">'.$title.'</a></li>
                    <li class="social_total">'.$twitter.'</li>
                    <li class="social_total">'.$gplus.'</li>
                    <li class="social_total">'.$stumble.'</li>
                    <li class="social_total">'.$linkedin.'</li>
                    <li class="social_total">'.$delicious.'</li>
                    <li class="social_total">'.$reddit.'</li>
                    <li class="social_total">'.$digg.'</li>
                    <li class="social_total">'.$fb_total.'</li>
                    <li class="fb_total fb_comm">'.$fb_comms.'</li>
                    <li class="fb_total fb_like">'.$fb_like.'</li>
                    <li class="fb_total fb_share">'.$fb_share.'</li>
                  </ul>
                ';

        endforeach;
        wp_reset_postdata();

echo '</div></div>';

}

any ideas about (a) getting it to work and (b) where it should go?

Answer 1

This is what ended up solving it (I'll include the relevant parts)

    $total = wp_count_posts()->publish;
    $perpage = 10;
    $curpage = isset( $_GET['pagenum'] ) ? intval($_GET['pagenum']) : 1;

    global $post;
        $args = array(
    'post_type'         => 'post',
    'post_status'       => 'publish',
    'order'             => 'DESC',
    'orderby'           => 'date',
    'posts_per_page'    => $perpage,
    'offset'            => $perpage*($curpage-1)
    );

$pages = ceil($total/$perpage);
$dash_posts = get_posts( $args );

handles the query, then

    $pagin = array();
for( $i = 1; $i <= $pages; $i++ ) {
    $url = $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'] . "&pagenum=$i";
    $link = "<li><a href='$url'>$i</a></li>";
    if ($curpage != $i) $link = str_replace( '~', '', $link );
    $pagin[] = $link;
}
echo '<div id="blgs_post_loader"><ul>'. implode( '', $pagin ) .'</ul></div>';

took care of the pagination itself. For whatever reason, the standard "paged" variable doesn't fire correctly on the admin side.