How to order category.php loop by 'meta_value'?

Question

So I have a basic loop on category.php that displays all posts from the specific category, like this:

<?php if (have_posts()) :
    while(have_posts()): the_post();
?>
    <a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>">
        <div>
            <h3><?php echo the_title();?></h3>
            <p><?php echo the_content(); ?></p>
        </div>
    </a>
<?php
    endwhile;
endif;
?>

I have another loop on another page that displays the most liked posts (posts in order of the number of their likes). That loop is:

    <?php 
    $query_args  = array(
    'post_type' => 'post',
    'posts_per_page' => 2,
    'orderby' => 'meta_value',
    'order' => 'DESC',
    'meta_query' => array(
        'relation' => 'OR',
         array(
            'key' => 'Likes',
            'compare' => 'NOT EXISTS',
            'type' => 'numeric'
         ),
         array(
            'key' => 'Likes',
            'compare' => 'EXISTS',
            'type' => 'numeric'
         )
    )
);
$loop = new WP_Query($query_args);
if ($loop->have_posts()):
    while($loop->have_posts()):
        $loop->the_post();
?>
        <a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>">
            <div>
                <h3><?php echo the_title();?></h3>
                <p><?php echo the_content(); ?></p>
            </div>
        </a>
<?php
    endwhile;
endif;
?>

So now I want another loop inside category.php that displays posts from the specific category based on the number of likes, or in other words, popular posts from that category. How do I go about combining these two loops to achieve that? Any help will be highly appreciated.

Cheers.

Answer 1

First you will need the slug of the current category:

  $cat = get_query_var('cat');
  $currentcat = get_category ($cat);

Then you can use the same loop. Just add the following to $query_args to limit the outcome to the current category:

'category_name' => $currentcat->slug,