Post timeline (pagination with date, not numbers)

Question

I'm pretty lost... I'm hoping someone can lead me onto the right track!

I'm trying to achieve the effect of a post timeline, by paginating the posts (1 per page) and rather than displaying the pages as numbered (i.e. 1, 2, 3, etc), I want to display the links as the date of each post, like this:

LATEST << | 3 Mar | 15 Feb | 22 Jan | 17 Dec | >> OLDEST

So far, I've looked at the built-in Wordpress functions 'get_pagination' and 'paginate_links', but I'm really struggling!

Any help would be most appreciated. Thank you!

Answer 1

Looks like you asked this question elsewhere,

• PROBLEM: WordPress Support Forum
• SOLUTION: PasteBin
• AUTHOR: Alan Jackson

For reference:

<?php
echo '<ul id="timeline">';
echo '<li>Latest</li>';
$prev_month = '';
$prev_year = '';
$args = array(
         'posts_per_page' => 10,
         'ignore_sticky_posts' => 1
);
$postsbymonth = new WP_Query($args);
while($postsbymonth->have_posts()) {
    $postsbymonth->the_post();
?>
<li><a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>"><?php the_time('j'); ?></a></li>
<?php
    if(get_the_time('F') != $prev_month || get_the_time('Y') != $prev_year && get_the_time('Y') == $prev_limit_year) {
        echo "<li>< ".get_the_time('M')."</li>\n";
    }
    $prev_month = get_the_time('F');
    $prev_year = get_the_time('Y');

}
echo '</ul>';
?>

I do not claim this works but I will assume the original author tested this before providing his answer, if his personal website is anything to go by.

Answer 2

I think I've managed to accomplish the timeline effect by using get_posts within this pagination function by Kriesi.

The main core of the code is in in my functions.php and I'm calling the function in the single template like this: kriesi_pagination($additional_loop->max_num_pages);

function kriesi_pagination($pages = '', $range = 3) {
       global $post;  
           $showitems = ($range * 2)+1;  
           global $paged;
           if(empty($paged)) $paged = 1;
            if($pages == '') {
                   global $wp_query;
                   $pages = $wp_query->max_num_pages;
                        if(!$pages) {
                      $pages = 1;
                        }
            }
        if(1 != $pages) {
            echo "<div class='pagination'><ul id='post-timeline'>";
            if($paged > 2 && $paged > $range+1 && $showitems < $pages) echo "<a href='".get_pagenum_link(1)."'>&laquo;</a>";
            if($paged > 1 && $showitems < $pages) echo "<a href='".get_pagenum_link($paged - 1)."'>&lsaquo;</a>";
    $args = array( 'numberposts' => $pages, 'post_status'=> 'publish' );
    $myposts = get_posts( $args );
            for ($i=1; $i <= $pages; $i++) {
           $p = $i-1;
           $entryDay = date('j', strtotime($myposts[$p]->post_date));
           $entryMon = date('M', strtotime($myposts[$p]->post_date));
           //$newID = $myposts[$p]->post_date('j,M');
                   if (1 != $pages &&( !($i >= $paged+$range+1 || $i <= $paged-$range-1) || $pages <= $showitems )) {

                    echo ($paged == $i)? "<li class='current'><span class='day'>".$entryDay."</span><br/><span class='small'>".$entryMon."</span></li>":"<li class='timeline'><a href='".get_pagenum_link($i)."' class='inactive' ><span class='day'>".$entryDay."</span><br/><span class='small'>".$entryMon."</span></a></li>"; 
                   }
            }
           if ($paged < $pages && $showitems < $pages) echo "<a href='".get_pagenum_link($paged + 1)."'>&rsaquo;</a>";  
           if ($paged < $pages-1 &&  $paged+$range-1 < $pages && $showitems < $pages) echo "<a href='".get_pagenum_link($pages)."'>&raquo;</a>";
           echo "</ul></div>\n";
           }
    }

If anyone has any feedback about this code - whether it's okay to use get_posts alongside the for loop in this way, or if there is a better way to do it - please let me know!

Thanks!