Exclude Posts Using Meta Query and User Meta

Question

I have a loop that is working great and doing exactly what I want. The problem is that I need to exclude specific posts that have already been marked as viewed using add_user_meta. Each post is marked as viewed using update_user_meta and the post id with the value '1'.

$_goal = $_GET['goal'] != '' ? $_GET['goal'] : '';
$calmargs = array('post_type'=>'yoga_post','goal'=>$_goal,'orderby'=>'date','order'=>'DESC','posts_per_page'=>1);
$calm = new WP_Query($calmargs);
if ($calm->have_posts()) { 
    while($calm->have_posts()) : $calm->the_post(); ?>

        <div>
        <div>   
            <a href="https://members.com/?det=<?php echo get_the_ID(); ?>" target="_blank"><?php the_post_thumbnail(); ?></a>
            <h4 style="height:70px;padding-top:15px"><a href="https://member.com/?det=<?php echo get_the_ID(); ?>" target="_blank" title="<?php the_title(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a><h4>

        <?php
            $yogavid = get_the_ID('yoga_post');     
            $videowatched = get_user_meta($current_user->ID, 'video_viewed_' . $yogavid, true);
            $one = '1';
            $zero='0';

            if ($videowatched != '1'){ ?>
                <form method="POST" target="_self" action="">
                    <input type="submit" class="watched-vid" id="<?php echo ($one.$yogavid); ?>" name="<?php echo ($one.$yogavid); ?>" value="Mark as Viewed">
                </form>
                <?php if(isset($_POST[($one.$yogavid)])){
                    update_user_meta($current_user->ID,'video_viewed_' . $yogavid, '1'); ?>
                    <script>
                    jQuery('#<?php echo ($one.$yogavid); ?>').attr( 'value' , 'Viewed' );
                    </script>
                <?php }  
            } else { ?>
                <form method="POST" target="_self" action="">
                    <input type="submit" class="watched-vid" id="<?php echo ($zero.$yogavid); ?>" name="<?php echo ($zero.$yogavid); ?>" value="Viewed">
                </form>
                <?php if(isset($_POST[($zero.$yogavid)])){
                    update_user_meta($current_user->ID,'video_viewed_' . $yogavid, '0'); ?>
                    <script>
                    jQuery('#<?php echo ($zero.$yogavid); ?>').attr( 'value' , 'Mark as Viewed' );
                    </script>   
                <?php } 
            } ?>    
            <?php 
                $calmpost = get_the_ID('yoga_post');
                add_user_meta($user_id,'calm_post', $calmpost, true); ?>
        </div>
    </div>
<?php 
endwhile; 

I need to exclude the posts with the value '1' in key 'video_viewed_' . $yogavid . I've tried nested loops and pre_get_posts but am coming up empty. Would appreciate any advice on how to get this working!

Answer 1

A simpler approach would be to store a list/array of post-ids of the posts which have been marked read by the user in his user_meta. Then retrieve this array for every logged-in user, and run the wp_query using the post__not_in parameter with the array as the argument.