How to Include One Tag While Excluding Another

You shouldn’t have to even mention “long” to exclude it. Your query will show only those items you want to show.

<?php
	query_posts('showposts=1&tag=Quote&orderby=rand');
	if (have_posts()) : while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
        <?php echo the_content(); ?>
	<?php endwhile; endif; ?>  

 <?php wp_reset_query(); ?>

That’s one option… but the problem is I think Mike has all of his quotes with the “quote” tag but some are too “long” (the reason he has the “long” tag as well.

Probably a better solution is multiple if-then. I’ll look at some other options as well.

I tried this previously and it did not work. The problem is that these posts have two tags: Quote and Long. In another place on my blog, I collect all the Quotes whether they are long or short. So the Long tag is an additional tag.

Thanks for your help.

wow. mike is fast…

I just wish I wasn’t such a hack!

Try adding something like:

if( has_tag('Long') {}
else{}

Not quite sure how I integrate that, but the logic makes sense.

This function from the Woo founder may help: How to exclude specific tag from query_posts

I looked at that but, unfortunately, am not smart enough to actually translate it into the exact code snippet I need. If anyone can do that, I am in your debt!

How many quotes are you working with? If it’s a smaller number, it may be easier to add a custom field & key to the shorter quotes, and then filter the loop based on that field. If this sounds like a possibility, I’ll put together a code.

I probably have 50 quotes, but it is growing every week. Thanks for your offer!

I’d still use a custom field, written to the database, so that you can manipulate the data in the future.

See this thread: https://www.ads-software.com/support/topic/353347

You can whip up a plugin in 15 min or so that would put a fancy little box on your posts page that would give you a few checkboxes: (1) quote (2) short (3) long, etc. Then, you could query posts based on the value of the meta key.

This should do what you’re looking for (adapted from the link idowens mentioned by the Woo founder).

<?php
	$tag = $wpdb->get_var($wpdb->prepare("SELECT term_ID FROM $wpdb->terms WHERE name='Long'"));
	$args = array(
		'showposts' => 1,
		'tag' => 'Quote',
		'tag__not_in' => array($tag),
		'orderby' => 'rand'
	);
	query_posts($args);
	if (have_posts()) : while (have_posts()) : the_post();
		echo the_content();
	endwhile; endif;

	wp_reset_query();
?>

Andrew, you win the prize. That works! Awesome. Thank you so much.

(I would have never come up with that on my own.)

No problem, glad it worked!