Calendar skin for blog posts

I publish notifications of events in advance. I would like to organize just the events page by the date of the event, rather than the date on which the notice was pubilshed.

Are these “events” standard WordPress posts? Or are you using some event management plugin (if so, which one)?

If you’re using standard blog posts for this, how are you specifying the event date (separate from the post’s publishing date)? Are you using Custom Fields? Or are you just sticking the event date in a paragraph in the post’s body?

If you’re not using one already, I recommend using an event management plugin to manage your events (which should have the feature you’re looking for… and many more), rather than publishing your events as standard blog posts. See: https://www.ads-software.com/plugins/search/events/

They are standard blog posts. The date of the event is in the body of the post currently. I’m imagining adding metadata (e.g. tags or custom fields) to enable sorting by event date.

While I’ve reviewed a number of event plugins and calendar plugins, I have not found anything that meets my needs. I’m not hosting events or selling tickets. I don’t want to provide addresses, prices, maps or other details. Just one hero image and text, but sortable by event the event date, rather than the date the blog post was published, and only on one page, not the entire site.

• This reply was modified 1 week, 1 day ago by lindseeeeee.
• This reply was modified 1 week, 1 day ago by lindseeeeee.
• This reply was modified 1 week, 1 day ago by lindseeeeee.

They are standard blog posts. The date of the event is in the body of the post currently. I’m imagining adding metadata (e.g. tags or custom fields) to enable sorting by event date.

It seems you know the limitation of what you have now and what you need to do already: you need to add the event date as a custom field or post metadata before you can sort by this date.

You may use the native Custom Field feature to add your date as a key/value pair, or create a custom meta box for this. Then you’ll need code in a custom page template to display these posts on an “Events” page, sorted as desired. You may do all this manually, or use a plugin to handle these for you.

There are a ton of plugins out there for creating and displaying custom fields and meta boxes: https://www.ads-software.com/plugins/search/custom+fields/

But if you’re going to use a plugin to stitch things together like this, then I’ll re-iterate my earlier recommendation to instead use an event management plugin that has all the pieces streamlined.

While I’ve reviewed a number of event plugins and calendar plugins, I have not found anything that meets my needs. I’m not hosting events or selling tickets. I don’t want to provide addresses, prices, maps or other details.

WordPress itself has a ton of features that you’ll never use. And just because an event management plugin has optional features you don’t need is not a good reason to not use it… if it has features you need. The ONLY plugin that will have JUST the features you need (and nothing more) is a plugin you build yourself.

Yes, I can create metadata without trouble. I’m looking for a way to display just one page on my site differently from the rest, using that metadata. If you have a specific suggestion that would be great. Again, I’ve looked at lots of plugins and haven’t found one that would display just one page differently from the rest, filtered appropriately.

• This reply was modified 1 week, 1 day ago by lindseeeeee.

I’m looking for a way to display just one page on my site differently from the rest, using that metadata. If you have a specific suggestion that would be great.

I told you this already: “… you need to add the event date as a custom field or post metadata before you can sort by this date.”

In a thousand words:

1) You’ll first need to use appropriate taxonomy to separate these events posts from blog posts if you (eg put all of them into an “events” category)

2) Add the date to each post in the events category however you wish

3) Create a standard WordPress PAGE. Let’s call it “Events”. This PAGE can be a blank page with no content. But you’ll assign a custom template to this Events page. Inside the custom page template is where all the magic happens: you’ll have PHP code to query the database to ONLY display posts from this “events” category but sorted by the event date post metadata (rather than the default publication date).

That’s the general idea.

Here’s an example of a snippet of code to help sort the posts by a custom field: https://www.ads-software.com/support/topic/sorting-query-loop-in-gutenberg-block-based-on-custom-field/

If you need a more specific guidance, please provide:

1) What theme you’re using for your site (because this will affect how you create the custom template)
2) How exactly you’re adding (or do you intend to add) the event date post metadata?

Standing by.

Yes, items #1 and #2 are all set, and an events page already exists. I’m looking for a plugin for item #3, if such a thing exists.

I’m looking for a plugin for item #3

Yes, but I need those two pieces of information I asked for to provide specific help (else I’ll have to give a very super-generic guide going over a whole lot of “if-this-then-that” scenarios:

1) What theme you’re using for your site (because this will affect how you create the custom template)
2) How exactly you’re adding (or do you intend to add) the event date post metadata?