Shortcode "post_per_page" not working

Question

I managed to make this shortcode work and it shows everything as I want. The only issue I am facing right now is that if I use posts_per_page => 1, it keeps showing all the posts. What can I do to be able to show only the latest post of the category? I tried: posts_per_page => 1 without '', but nothing it's still not working.

Here's the code I am using:

function Arte($atts, $content = null) {
    extract(
        shortcode_atts(
            array( 
                "pagination" => 'false',
                "query" => '',
                "category" => 'arte',
                "posts_per_page"    => '1',
            ), 
            $atts
        )
    );



    global $wp_query,$paged,$post;

    $temp = $wp_query;
    $wp_query= null;
    $wp_query = new WP_Query();

    if ( $pagination == 'true' ) {
        $query .= '&paged='.$paged;
    }

    if (!empty($category)) {
        $query .= '&category_name='.$category;
    }

    if (!empty($query)) {
        $query .= $query;
    }

    $wp_query->query($query);

    ob_start();
    ?>
    <ul class="loop">
        <?php while ( $wp_query->have_posts() ) : $wp_query->the_post(); ?>
            <li><a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark">
                    <div class="cont-overlay"><?php the_post_thumbnail(
                            'ilRaccoglitore_single', array(
                            'class' => 'img-thumb-sidebar',
                            'alt'   => get_the_title(), )); ?>
                        <div class="overlay"></div>
                    </div>
                    <h5 class="title-sidebar"><?php echo the_title(); ?></h5>
                </a></li>
            <li class="excerpt-sidebar"><?php the_excerpt(); ?></li>
        <?php endwhile; ?>
    </ul>

    <?php if ($pagination == 'true') { ?>
        <div class="navigation">
            <div class="alignleft"><?php previous_posts_link('« Previous') ?></div>
            <div class="alignright"><?php next_posts_link('More »') ?></div>
        </div>
    <?php } ?>

    <?php
    $wp_query = null; $wp_query = $temp;

    $content = ob_get_contents();

    ob_end_clean();

    return $content;
}

add_shortcode("arte", "Arte");

Thank you in advance!

Answer 1

You have the posts_per_page attribute in your shortcode, but you're not actually calling it in your WP_Query. Your're doing a few unnecessary things in your code, but for now, the issue at hand is that you need to add:

if( !empty( $posts_per_page )) {
    $query .= '&posts_per_page='.$posts_per_page;
}

Before you call:

$wp_query->query($query);

As it is currently written, your query doesn't take into the posts_per_page parameter into account

Answer 2

For Example try this:

function my_shortcode($atts,$content=null)
{
    extract(shortcode_atts(array(
        'posts'=>'1',
    ),$atts));

        $query = new WP_Query(array(
        'posts_per_page'=> $posts
        ));
}

add_shortcode("latest_post","my_shortcode");

and add shortcode [latest_post posts=1]