Child Category Image

Question

I have some code that display's the titles of my child category posts on one of my pages:

<?php
    $parent = get_cat_ID("photos");
    $cats = get_categories('child_of='.$parent);
    foreach ($cats as $cat) {
        echo "<ul>";
        echo sprintf("<li><a href='%s'>%s</a></li>", get_category_link($cat->term_id), apply_filters("get_term", $cat->name));
        echo "</ul>";
} ?>

Is there a way to also post a random featured image from the child category posts? I'm pretty sure I can use this existing code, just not sure what to change to make it work.

Thanks,
Josh

Answer 1

You can get a random post by category by using the following code:

query_posts( array (
    'showposts' => 1,
    'orderby'   => 'rand',
    'cat'       => $cat->term_id
) );

if ( have_posts() ) : while ( have_posts() ) : the_post();
...

And then use get_the_post_thumbnail() to retrieve the post featured image:

if ( has_post_thumbnail() )
    $image = get_the_post_thumbnail( $post_id );

Your final code could look like this:

$parent = get_cat_ID( 'photos' );

if ( is_category( $parent ) ) {
    $cats = get_categories( 'child_of=' . $parent );

    foreach ( $cats as $cat ) {
        query_posts( array (
            'showposts' => 1,
            'orderby'   => 'rand',
            'cat'       => $cat->term_id
        ) );

        if ( have_posts() ) :
            while ( have_posts() ) :
                the_post();

                $image = '';
                if ( has_post_thumbnail() )
                    $image = get_the_post_thumbnail( get_the_ID() );

                echo '<ul>';
                printf( '<li>%s<a href="%s">%s</a></li>',
                    $image,
                    get_category_link( $cat->term_id ),
                    apply_filters( 'get_term', $cat->name ) );
                echo '</ul>';
            endwhile;
        else:
            // CATEGORY HAS NO POSTS
        endif;
    }
} else {
    // CATEGORY DOESN'T EXIST
}

Answer 2

My final code looks like:

<?php
    $parent = get_cat_ID("photos");
    $cats = get_categories("child_of=".$parent);
    foreach ($cats as $cat) {
    query_posts("posts_per_page=1&orderby=rand&cat=".$cat->cat_ID);
?>
    <?php if ($parent == true && have_posts()) : while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
        <ul>
            <?php if (has_post_thumbnail()) { ?>
                <?php
                    printf( '<li><a href="'.get_category_link($cat->cat_ID).'">'.get_the_post_thumbnail(get_the_ID(), "album-thumb").'</a><a href="'.get_category_link($cat->term_id).'">%s</a></li>',
                    apply_filters('get_term', $cat->name));
                ?>
            <?php } ?>
        </ul>
    <?php endwhile; endif; } ?>
    <?php if (! $parent == true || ! $cat == true) { ?>
        <p><?php _e("Sorry, no posts matched your criteria."); ?></p>
    <?php } ?>
<?php wp_reset_query(); ?>

Basically, in this version a couple of things changed:

1. I changed the if to make sure that the parent category exists and that we have a post, if both of those conditions are met then it will display my content...if not, it does nothing.

2. Since the else wasn't working I wrote my own...that says...if the parent category or the child category doesn't exist than display my error message...if so, than do nothing.

Not sure why the else doesn't work, but my guess is it's because of the foreach that's the only thing that's different in this loop, that's not in most other loops.

Hope this helps someone else :)

Thanks Mike for all your help!!

*P.S. - I will be marking your solution as the answer, as it did answer my initial question :)

Josh