[Plugin: Flexible Posts Widget] How to display a custom field in sidebar?

Hi Nick,

Since we’re in a sidebar and not within the “main” loop, the global $post variable isn’t available for your call to get_post_custom. Try getting the ID for the current post being looped through and using that in your call like this:

get_post_custom( get_the_ID() )

Alternatively, you could use get_post_meta() instead of get_post_custom() like this:

$description-presentation = $get_post_meta( get_the_ID(), 'description-presentation' );.

Using get_post_meta() saves you having to find the description keys in the full set of meta key/values for the post.

get_the_ID() reference: https://codex.www.ads-software.com/Function_Reference/get_the_ID

get_post_meta() reference: https://codex.www.ads-software.com/Function_Reference/get_post_meta

Cheers!

Thanks, Dave. Still no success and I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong (I don’t program PHP). Adding the code you suggested, here’s my custom template file, starting after
… “if( $flexible_posts->have_posts() )?>” ,
and ending before “echo $after_widget”

<ul class="dpe-flexible-posts">
        <?php while ( $flexible_posts->have_posts() ) : $flexible_posts->the_post(); ?>
      <li style="margin:0;padding:0" id="post-<?php the_ID(); ?>" <?php post_class(); ?>
      <h4 class="title" style="margin:0;padding:0;font-family:Arial,Verdana,sans-serif"><?php the_title(); ?></h4>
      <p style="margin:0;padding:0">

<?php $description-presentation = $get_post_meta( get_the_ID(), 'description-presentation' );?>

<?php the_excerpt();?>
</p>

    <?php endwhile; ?>

		<!-- .dpe-flexible-posts -->

Thanks again.

Nick

[Moderator Note: Please post code or markup snippets between backticks or use the code button. As it stands, your code may now have been permanently damaged/corrupted by the forum’s parser.]

You’ll still need the foreach loop from your original example. Here’s the whole code block together: https://pastebin.com/mvS0QXA4. Cheers!

Thanks again, Dave. I carefully inserted your code example into my script but this time only the Title of one post appeared. Not the custom field (‘description-presentation’) and not the excerpt. What’s more, the other 3 posts of this category (I have set the widget to show 4 most recent) didn’t show up either.

At this point I will not ask you to do anymore work on it, since you’re not paid for your time on this. I’ll figure out a work-around, still using your plug-in but not relying on displaying a custom field in the sidebar post (instead of the default).

In case you’re interested, here’s the URL of the dummied-up, not fully styled website. Your Flexible Posts Widget produces the right sidebar. Content for each post is the main, default edit screen:
https://www.richmondcarotary.org/stage/

Thank you again for your time.

Nick

Hi Nick,

I’m sorry we weren’t able to get this to work together. Let me know if I can be of further assistance debugging it. For now, I’m going to consider this thread closed.