How do I create a featured post within a custom post type?

Question

Do I do this exactly the same way as I would with normal posts? I use a $featured_cat global variable and pull that out. Should I do the same here?

Or should I use an associated custom taxonomy? Or perhaps I am over-thinking it? Would there really be a benefit with taxonomies?

What's the right approach here, guys?

Answer 1

Register a video post type and a "Featured Taxonomy" "Featured Custom Meta Select Box

The Post type:

function c3m_reg_vid_post() {
            
              $labels = array(
                'name' => _x('Videos', 'post type general name'),
                'singular_name' => _x('Video', 'post type singular name'),
                'add_new' => _x('Add New', 'video'),
                'add_new_item' => __('Add New Video'),
                'edit_item' => __('Edit Video'),
                'new_item' => __('New Video'),
                'view_item' => __('View Video'),
                'search_items' => __('Search Videos'),
                'not_found' =>  __('No videos found'),
                'not_found_in_trash' => __('No videos found in Trash'), 
                'parent_item_colon' => ''
              );
              $args = array(
                'labels' => $labels,
                'public' => true,
                'publicly_queryable' => true,
                'show_ui' => true, 
                'query_var' => true,
                'show_in_nav_menus' => true,
                'can_export' => true,
                'rewrite' => array('slug' => 'video', 'with_front' => false),
                'capability_type' => 'post',
                'register_meta_box_cb' => 'c3m_video_meta', //This is for our custom meta box
                'hierarchical' => false,
                'menu_position' => 10,
               'taxonomies' => array('featured'),
                'supports' => array('title', 'editor' 'custom-fields')
              ); 
              register_post_type('video', $args );
}

###The Taxonomy

On second thought lets use a custom field for the featured video post and create a drop down select custom meta box to choose if the post is featured.

Set up the custom meta box:

//hook to add a meta box
add_action( 'add_meta_boxes', 'c3m_video_meta' );

function c3m_video_meta() {
    //create a custom meta box
    add_meta_box( 'c3m-meta', 'Featured Video Selector', 'c3m_mbe_function', 'video', 'normal', 'high' );
}

function c3m_mbe_function( $post ) {

    //retrieve the meta data values if they exist
    $c3m_mbe_featured = get_post_meta( $post->ID, '_c3m_mbe_featured', true );

    echo 'Select yes below to make video featured';
    ?>
    <p>Featured: 
    <select name="c3m_mbe_featured">
        <option value="No" <?php selected( $c3m_mbe_featured, 'no' ); ?>>No Way</option>
        <option value="Yes" <?php selected( $c3m_mbe_featured, 'yes' ); ?>>Sure Feature This Video</option>
    </select>
    </p>
    <?php
}

//hook to save the meta box data
add_action( 'save_post', 'c3m_mbe_save_meta' );
function c3m_mbe_save_meta( $post_ID ) {
    global $post;
    if( $post->post_type == "video" ) {
        if ( isset( $_POST ) ) {
            update_post_meta( $post_ID, '_c3m_mbe_featured', strip_tags( $_POST['c3m_mbe_featured'] ) );
        }
    }
}

}

Here is our cool little featured video post selector we just created:

Now lets query the video posts that are featured:

$args = array(
    'post_type' => 'video',
    'meta_query' => array(
        array(
            'key' => 'c3m_mbe_featured',
            'value' => 'yes',
            'compare' => 'NOT LIKE'
        )
    )
 );
$query = new WP_Query( $args );

Answer 2

Same as with every other post type, really...use a category...or whatever other method you prefer (tag, custom taxonomy, custom metadata/field,...).