Display post_meta in Shortcode

Question

Simple shortcode turning overcomplicated

<?php
function recent_posts() {

$q = new WP_Query( 
  array( 'orderby' => 'date', 'posts_per_page' => '1') 
);

$list = '<ul>';

while($q->have_posts()) : $q->the_post();
//$location = bloginfo('template_directory');
$imgsrc = get_post_meta($q->ID, 'blog-left-image', true);

$list .= '<li><a href="' . get_permalink() . '">' . get_the_title();
$list .= '<img src="' . $location . '/image.php/resized.jpg?width=80&amp;height=80&amp;image=' . $imgsrc . '" alt="" class="related-posts-img" style="float:left; margin-right:5px;" />';
$list .= '</a></li>';

endwhile;

wp_reset_query();

return $list . '</ul>';

add_shortcode("recent_posts", "recent_posts");?>

Thought this would be straightforward. Want to create a shortcode to display the post thumbnails. Problem is, the get_post_meta(...) outputs nothing and the bloginfo('template_directory') doesn't concatenate correctly.

Answer 1

Looks like you've got two issues:

The first is your use of $q->ID. This is not the correct way to get the current post id from inside a loop. You want to use get_the_ID().

The second issue is you should be using get_bloginfo() instead of bloginfo(). Bloginfo echo's the data directly while get_bloginfo() returns it (allowing you to assign to the $location variable).

One last suggestion: get_bloginfo('template_directory') is not going to be changing values in each iteration of your loop. You can move that line outside of the loop to save some resources.

Answer 2

maybe?

function recent_posts() {

$args = array ( 'orderby' => 'date', 'posts_per_page' => '1');

$recent_posts = get_posts($args);

if($recent_posts) :
$list = '<ul>';

//store the $post variable
global $post; $temp = $post;
foreach ($postslist as $post) :  setup_postdata($post); 

$imgsrc = get_post_meta(get_the_ID(), 'blog-left-image', true);

$list .= '<li><a href="' . get_permalink() . '">' . get_the_title();
$list .= '<img src="' . get_template_directory_uri() . '/image.php/resized.jpg?width=80&amp;height=80&amp;image=' . $imgsrc . '" alt="" class="related-posts-img" style="float:left; margin-right:5px;" />';
$list .= '</a></li>';

endwhile;

$list .= '</ul>';
//reset the $post variable
$post = $temp;
endif;

return $list;

add_shortcode("recent_posts", "recent_posts");