I am struggling with a coding problem as we want to guide the user to the next unread post within a category ('puzzles'), since we don't want users to go back and re-submit old puzzles to game their metrics. Anytime the user accesses this category, we want to automatically send her to next puzzle post she hasn't answered.
To do this, I track the post ID of the last puzzle each user submitted in their user meta. I've been trying to change my category-specific single post template to automatically detect if the user has submitted any puzzles, if so retrieve the post ID of the last puzzle they submitted, and redirect them to the next post in the category, if not direct them to the first post in the category. Tearing my hair out over this code today, so hope someone smart and kind can guide me where I've gone wrong. What I've done so far just puts me in endless re-direct loop until I get 'too many redirects' error.
// Find out what the first post in the puzzles category is
$args = array(
'category_name' => 'puzzles',
'showposts' => 1,
'fields' => 'ids',
'post_type' => 'post',
'post_status' => 'published',
'orderby' => 'date',
'order' => 'ASC'
);
$posts = get_posts( $args );
$firstQ = $posts[0];
// Find out if the user has done any puzzles before
$lastQ = get_user_meta( $user_id, 'cs-pzl-lastQ', TRUE );
if (!$lastQ) {
// User has never done a puzzle, so send user to first post in Daily Puzzle category
wp_redirect( get_page_link($firstQ) );
exit;
} else {
// Send user to the next Q after the last one they did
if ($lastQ == get_the_ID()) {
$nextQ = get_next_post( TRUE );
wp_redirect( get_page_link($nextQ) );
exit;
} else {
// Send user to lastQ post, figure out what is the next Q in the puzzle sequence, and re-direct to it
wp_redirect( get_page_link($lastQ) );
exit;
}
}
If anyone can spot my blunder - or tell me a simpler way to accomplish the desired outcome - I'll be very, very grateful...
