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Could someone help me write a custom shortcode to simply display the latest post anywhere in Wordpress? I've seen a lot of ways how to do this in pure PHP in a custom page template, but if I try to convert it, I always get problems (double display) or completely nothing. It should be just one post (not page) of any kind at all, as long as it's the most recent one.

I just need it like this:

<h2>Title</h2>
<p>Excerpt...</p>
<a href="permalink" class="button">Read more</a>

I've also looked for some plugins, but that's also problematic. They break all shortcode functionality or they just display a list...

Can anyone help me out and score some points? I would surely appreciate it.

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1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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In functions.php file :

 function my_recent_post()
 {
      global $post;

      $html = "";

      $my_query = new WP_Query( array(
           'post_type' => 'post',
           'posts_per_page' => 1
      ));

      if( $my_query->have_posts() ) : while( $my_query->have_posts() ) : $my_query->the_post();

           $html .= "<h2>" . get_the_title() . "</h2>";
           $html .= "<p>" . get_the_excerpt() . "</p>";
           $html .= "<a href=\"" . get_permalink() . "\" class=\"button\">Read more</a>";

      endwhile; endif;

      return $html;
 }
 add_shortcode( 'recent', 'my_recent_post' );

And the shortcode would be [recent].

Code is untested, but should look something like that.

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  • 2
    the general code is fine - however, it is not recommended to use query_posts() in a secondary loop - try to work with WP_Query() or get_posts()
    – Michael
    Commented Feb 1, 2012 at 18:22
  • 3
    @Michael Yes you're right, I updated my example in consequence.
    – Shane
    Commented Feb 1, 2012 at 18:26
  • 1
    Even better to use get_post when its just one post
    – Bainternet
    Commented Feb 1, 2012 at 18:42
  • @Bainternet How would you go about getting the latest post ID? Wouldn't you need a query to obtain that before using get_post, or is the ID stored elsewhere?
    – Shane
    Commented Feb 1, 2012 at 19:01
  • I would add a reset query after the loop, that way you guarantee it won't break any other code into the page. As far as I know you, you can just add the_ID, and I will return the post id, since you are showing only one post, you are getting only the last id, what would you need it for?
    – andresmijares
    Commented Feb 1, 2012 at 21:10

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