Archive template combined with post slider and regular posts

Question

I am trying to find the best and easiest way of modifying my archive.php template to contain slider on top which slides the 4 first posts and the rest (6) will be displayed beneath as a regular posts.

it should work dynamically with one loop, meaning that if I am clicking on "Previous" or "next" posts and get the paged archive it should work normally and display the same structure starting with the 4 first (in that paged archive) in the slider continuing beneath it with 6 regular posts.

Also I need the name of the category on top but not including other categories which share the same posts!

It seems like a pretty simple Query. the only thing I am concerned bout is how to loop through the slider which contains 2 part: the 4 slider boxes on the right and the faded images on the left.

to better understand what I am trying to achieve here. here is an image I prepared to explain it:

would appreciate any help Thanks. Gil

Answer 1

There are several ways of doing this. You could, for instance, incorporate a counter into your loop and treat the post data with respect to the counter's value.

YOUR QUERY HERE
$my_counter = 0;
while ( have_posts() ) : the_post();
$my_counter++;
if ( $my_counter <= 4 ) {
    SLIDER ACTION
} else {
    REGULAR POST ACTION
}
endwhile;