Custom Post Type archive loop separated by term, in specific term order

Question

I have a custom post type registered (our-team) and I have a taxonomy (team-categories) with multiple terms. Each term has multiple posts assigned to it. On my custom post type archive (archive-our-team.php) I am using the code below to separate my loop by term, which is working great, but defaults to alphabetical ordering by term:

A Term Name - all posts in this term

B Term Name - all posts in this term

C Term Name - all posts in this term

I can't figure out how to customize the order of the terms so I can get something like (any order I want):

C Term Name - all posts in this term

A Term Name - all posts in this term

B Term Name - all posts in this term

Is there a way to set an order number for each term in a taxonomy, so when I get_terms and then output with foreach they are in the order I want?

<?php //for a given post type, return all
$post_type = 'our-team';
$tax = 'team-categories';
$tax_terms = get_terms($tax);
if ($tax_terms) {
    foreach ($tax_terms  as $tax_term) {
        $args=array(
          'post_type' => $post_type,
          "$tax" => $tax_term->slug,
          'post_status' => 'publish',
          'posts_per_page' => -1,


        );

        $my_query = null;
        $my_query = new WP_Query($args);
        if( $my_query->have_posts() ) {

            echo '<h2 style="clear:both;">'.$tax_term->name.'</h2>';
            while ($my_query->have_posts()) : $my_query->the_post(); 
             //set vars for custom fields
            $team_location = get_field('team_location');
            $team_position = get_field('team_position');
            $team_email = get_field('team_email');
            $team_name = get_the_title();
            $team_link = get_permalink();

            //get only first name. usage: echo $first_name[0];
            $team_first_name = $team_name;
            $first_name = explode(' ', trim($team_first_name));
            ?>
                <div class="team_member">
                    <?php if ( has_post_thumbnail()) { ?>
                        <a class="thickbox" href="<?php echo $team_link; ?>"><?php the_post_thumbnail('medium'); ?></a>                     
                    <?php } else { ?>
                        <img src="<? bloginfo('template_directory' );?>/library/images/no_pic.jpg" alt="no image provide" />
                    <?php } ?>

                    <div class="team_member_info">
                        <h2><?php the_title();?></h2>
                        <p><a class="thickbox" href="<?php echo $team_link; ?>">More info <?php// echo $first_name[0]; ?></a></p>
                        <?php if ($team_email) : ?><p><a href="mailto:<?php echo $team_email;?>">Email <?php echo $first_name[0]; ?></a></p><?php endif; ?>
                    </div>
                </div> <?php 
            endwhile;
        } 
  }
} 

?>

Answer 1

You can use this awesome plugin to give a sort order for taxonomy. It's old but still work on WordPress 3.6 and probably the latest version too.

Answer 2

My solution was to store the term order as metadata for the post.

//reset terms
if( is_array( $_POST['genres'] ) && count( $_POST['genres'] ) ){
    $_POST['genres_order'] = ( $_POST['genres'] = array_map( 'intval', $_POST['genres'] ) );
    wp_set_object_terms( $_POST['ID'], $_POST['genres'], 'nv_genre', false ); //will replace any previous genres
}

Then when I retrieve the terms I can order them by id. More detailed explaination here: Control term order on a per-post basis