How To Show Posts From a Specific Category On a Thesis Theme Page

Let’s say you want to only display posts from a specific category on a page in Thesis. I find myself needing to do this more often than not when creating blogs and websites using the Thesis theme. There is a pretty simple way to achieve this using the special function below.

Here are the 2 simple steps to show posts from a category on a page in Thesis:

1. Copy and paste the code below into your custom_functions.php file. You can use an FTP program (My preference is FileZilla), or just use the custom file editor inside of Thesis.
2. Now add a page or simply use an existing page in WordPress and scroll down to the Custom Field section. Add a new custom field and in the Name field add custom_cat_page, then in the Value field enter the ID of the category you wish to display. To find the category ID, go to the Post Category section and hover over the category then look at the bottom of the browser window and you will see the ID at the very end of the URL that displays.

The code to insert into your custom_functions.php file:

function custom_cat_page() {
global $post;
$temp_query = $post;
// This loads the data on the current post and saves it in $temp_query (so we can get it later)
$postID = $post->ID;
$custom_cat = get_post_meta($postID, 'custom_cat_page',$single=true);
// Save the custom field 'custom_cat_page' to $custom_cat
if($custom_cat){
// If the custom field is in use...
?><?php
$posts = new WP_Query('cat='.$custom_cat.'&showposts=10');
// Get the 10 most recent posts from the specified categories
while ($posts->have_posts()) : $posts->the_post();
?>
<h3><a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>"><?php echo $post->post_title ?></a></h3>
<?php the_excerpt();
// Show the post title and excerpt.
endwhile;
?>
<p><a href="/?cat=<?php echo $custom_cat;?>">View the Archives</a></p>
<!-- Link to the archives page for the categories -->
<?php
$post = $temp_query;
// Reset $post back to its original content
}
?>
<?php
}
add_action('thesis_hook_after_post','custom_cat_page');
// Add this function after the page's content

You can further customize how you want the posts to display by making the necessary edits to the code. For example, I added post thumbnail functionality so that a thumbnail is shown with each post.

Although you can most likely find similar solutions on numerous blogs, I first discovered this one over at Bill Erickson’s blog. Thanks Bill.

Tagged as: Post Categories, thesis tips