Problems with pagination using get_posts

Hello my name is Lucas Gabriel and I’m a webdesigner from Brazil. I’m currently developing my first wordpress theme. In it I have a custom homepage set up.

The homepage can be seen in the link below:
https://www.limonadaweb.com.br/home.jpg

Well here is the deal: In the homepage I have a custom LOOP that goes through the posts in a particular category called “noticias” (news in portuguese). Ok so far so good. The loop runs perfectly using get_posts() method. Ok.

BUT…there’s allways a but otherwise I would not have posted this problem would I? lol. But when I try to use pagination the thing goes haywire. What happens, you may ask. Well to begin with I HAVE NO IDEA how to paginate. What I’ve done is to get the WHOLE loop AND pagination in a file named noticias_home.php and include that .php inside my home.php of my theme. And then, using jQuery ajax .load method I update the section of news withouth reloading the entire page.

Ill just post here the entire thing and try to explain later on.

<div id="noticias_wrapper">
	<h2 class="red title">NOTíCIAS</h2>
	<ul class="noticias_home">
	<?php
		// Posts Per Page option
		$ppp			= 4;
		$init_offset	= 4;
		$custom_offset	= 0;
		if ($paged == 0) {
			$paged = 1;
			$custom_offset = $init_offset;
		} else {
			/*$paged -= 1;//I have to do this otherwise when I go to page 2 the variable $paged = 0 goes to $paged = 2 and screws up the whole thing;*/
			if($init_offset == 0){$paged -= 1;}
			$custom_offset = $ppp*($paged);
		}
		//print_r('$PAGED '.$paged.' -- ');
		//print_r('$INIT_OFFSET '.$init_offset.' -- ');
		//print_r('$CUSTOM_OFFSET '.$custom_offset);
		$args		= Array('category_name' => 'noticias', 'offset' => $custom_offset, 'posts_per_page' => 4);
		$not_home = get_posts($args);
		$i = 0;
		foreach($not_home as $post) : setup_postdata($post);
	?>
		<?php if($i%2 == 0) : ?><li class="grid_4 alpha">
		<?php else : ?><li class="grid_4 omega">
		<?php endif ?>
				<h6 class="grey_light"><?php echo get_the_date('d / m / Y'); ?></h5>
				<h5 class="grey_dark">
					<a href="<?php the_permalink()?>">
						<?php the_title(); ?>
					</a>
				</h5>
				<?php
					$args = array( 'post_type' => 'attachment', 'numberposts' => -1, 'post_status' =>'any', 'post_parent' => $post->ID );
					$attachments = get_posts($args);
					if ($attachments) {
							$attachment = $attachments[0];
							$img_url = wp_get_attachment_image_src($attachment->ID , 'thumbnail'); ?>
							<a href="<?php the_permalink()?>">
								<img src="<?php echo $img_url[0] ?>" height="<?php echo $img_url[2] ?>" width="<?php echo $img_url[1] ?>" />
							</a>
						<?php }
					else{
						echo the_excerpt();
					}
				?>
				<a href=" <?php get_permalink() ?> " class="leia_tudo">LEIA TUDO</a>
			<?php if($i%2 == 0) : ?></li>
			<?php else : ?></li><div style="clear:both"></div>
			<?php endif ?>
		<?php
			$i++;
			endforeach;
	?>
	</ul>
	<div id="home_pagination">
		<?php
		$pages = '';
		$number_posts = intval(get_category_by_slug('noticias')->count);
		$max = ceil(($number_posts - $init_offset) / $ppp);
		//print_r($paged);
		if (!$current 		= get_query_var('paged')) $current = 1;
		$args['base'] 		= str_replace(999999999, '%#%', get_pagenum_link(999999999));
		$args['total']		= $max;
		$args['current']	= $current;
		$args['mid_size'] 	= 3;
		$args['end_size'] 	= 2;
		echo paginate_links($args);
	?>
	</div>
</div>

Ok as you can see above I have the loop to display the news and the pagination function right below it. IT IS WORKING, I just don’t know why, lol. My question is: why use get_posts? I tried with query_posts and the whole thing dies off. I was also warned not to mess with the main loop. And what about the pagination? I don’t use query->max_num_pages because it gives me the wrong number of pages. Also because I keep reloading the entire thing I had to create the variable $init_offset otherwise the pagination would decrease the value of the variable $max. (if you run the code you would see that when it loads the first time #custom_offset would be 4 then the $max would be TOTAL – 4, then in the second paged $max = TOTAL – 8 and so on and so on…

as you can see it is all very confusing…I’d like to keep things simple. I was trying before to use jQuery ajax .load method to not only load noticias_home.php but also to send it a variable that would let noticias_home.php know in wich page the navigation should be. I was unsucessfull at that.

take a look at my ajax function wich loads noticias_home.php

jQuery('#home_pagination a').live('click', function(e){
  e.preventDefault();
  var link = jQuery(this).attr('href');
  jQuery('#noticias_home').html('Loading...');
  jQuery('#noticias_home').load(link+' #noticias_home');
});

I’m sorry if it is all so confusing. I’m a newbie and trying real hard not to cry. I mean, I got the thing to work, but I think it could be better. can anyone help me?