Adding post lists and grids to your Site couldn’t be easier than with the WP Show Posts plugin. Dispatch uses the Free version to display posts on the Front page and in the Sidebars. Of course with a little Flint Skin CSS treatment.
Head off to Dashboard > WP Show Posts > All Lists. Within are six lists:
- Align
- Standard
- Sidebar
- Header
- Simple
- Simple Sidebar
Each of them have very particular settings required to match the demo content you see here. Changing those settings may affect the way the post is displayed, and not necessarily for the better. So please work on a duplicate or make a note before changing.
Note: the name of the List has no relevance to the different styles displayed.
General ( and important ) information
Before we go into the detail let’s cover some basic and very important information.
Advanced Settings
For the purpose of the demo content a couple of the Lists are using Advanced Settings. First off the Standard List is using Ascending Order (Default: Descending). Secondly the Simple List is using Offset, so it omits the first 4 posts. You may want to put these back to default if you’re not intending to replace them.
Duplicating WP Show Posts List
So we have four lists, and we want to make a new Standard list with a different category. The easiest way is to use one of the Duplicate Post plugins in the WordPress repository. Simple hey. And it works for all post types including GP Elements. Awesome. Note: When making a duplicate you are generally given two options. Clone and New Draft. I advise using the New Draft as some people have reported issues when using Clone.
List: Standard
This is the standard WP Show Post list that has the same custom styling applied to the GP Blog:
Exploring the ‘American Alps:’ the North Cascades
By Michael Lanza
The wind and horizontal rain battered us and the fog reduced visibility to 50 feet at times as we hiked up Sahale Arm. We struggled into the maelstrom with rain jacket hoods cinched snugly, our heads bent forward into the wind. Bullets of cold rain pelted my cheek. It was mid-July in Washington’s North Cascades National Park, but it felt like mid-October—no surprise in the northernmost and one of the wettest mountain ranges in the contiguous United States, where 110 inches of precipitation falls annually on its western slope. My friend David Ports and I were headed up toward some of the most severely vertical mountain scenery in the country—though that morning, it didn’t look like we’d get treated to any of it.
Exploring America’s Big Sandbox: Colorado’s Great Sand Dunes
By Michael Lanza
We walk along the crest of giant sand dunes as narrow as the peak of a roof, watching sand cascade down either side under our boots, and listening to it “singing” with squeaks and booms. Mouse-size kangaroo rats roam the dunes, leaping five feet into the air. At night, shooting stars arc like flaming arrows through a pitch-black sky.
Conquistadors of Adventure: Discovering Multi-Sport Gold in Spain’s Valencia region
By Michael Lanza
I’m standing on a rocky ridgetop amid the crumbling ruins of a castle built by Moors during their seven-century rule over most of Spain. It looks like a good spot to dig in. Beyond these broken walls, the ground plunges hundreds of feet over cliffs and mostly treeless, double-black-diamond slopes of thorny desert scrub. Today, though, there’ll be no rain of arrows from attacking marauders—only me and my guide, José Miguel Garcia, hiking through a sea of craggy limestone mountains. Some 3,000 feet below us, bleached terracotta villages dotting the valley bottom hold out the promise of a post-hike feast of tapas and local wine.
Earth, Wind, and Fire: A Journey to the Planet’s Beginnings in Iceland
By Michael Lanza
The land is on fire.
Actually, the land appears to be smoldering, stoked by some persistent furnace just beneath the surface. Which is essentially true.
Steam from hot springs and other geothermal features issues from scores of points from here to the horizon. Mud pots bubble and burp, and the color of volcanic activity is everywhere—paint-can spills of ochre, pink, gold, plum, brown, rust, and honey against a backdrop of purple pumice and electric-lime moss. An old, hardened lava flow pours down one mountainside in a jumbled train wreck of razor-sharp black rhyolite. Barren peaks extend ridges like the arms of starfish. Chattering streams carry the runoff from July snowfields smeared across the highlands. Scudding clouds stampede overhead, constantly rearranging the dappled sunlight splashing over the landscape.
This is how the list is displayed within the Content area just by adding the WP Show Post Shortcode. Here follows the basic styling changes that have been made.
Content Wrap (WPSP Only)
Using a custom Hook Element the Post article content is now wrapped within a DIV container. This container carries a class of wpsp-content-wrap for styling. This wrap is present on all WP Show Posts that are output inside Dispatch.
Featured Image
The featured image has a fixed height to match the layout. This is achieved using this CSS:
.generate-columns-container article .inside-article img, .wp-show-posts-image img {
height: 180px;
width: 100%;
-o-object-fit: cover !important;
object-fit: cover !important;
}
You can edit the height property to suit, or remove the CSS it entirely if you want to use your own sizes.
Meta above title
This is achieved using a flex box on the Entry Header. Again this applied to the GP Blog:
.generate-columns-container article .entry-header, .wp-show-posts-entry-header {
display: -webkit-box;
display: -ms-flexbox;
display: flex;
-webkit-box-orient: vertical;
-webkit-box-direction: reverse;
-ms-flex-direction: column-reverse;
flex-direction: column-reverse;
}
Entry Title forced to 2 lines
The entry title always displays a minimum and maximum of 2 lines. This mantains the across row alignment. Again this is applied to GP Blog. The ex unit is used to define the number of lines visible. The lines are set by defining the line-height and setting the height to as many mutiples as you require lines. e.g up the height to 7.5ex will create three lines.
.generate-columns-container article .entry-header .entry-title, .wp-show-posts article .wp-show-posts-entry-title {
line-height: 2.5ex;
height: 5ex;
overflow: hidden;
text-overflow: ellipsis;
}
List: Align
Designed for a single column list this displays the content the image to the left and content to the right. This is subtly different to just resizing the image in the WP Show Posts list settings and aligning it left. Thanks to the Content Wrap we added (above) the content will never wrap around the image. On mobile it just stacks.
To add one of these your posts requires a little markup. And is done like so:
<div class="wpsp-align">shortcode_goes_here</div>
Review: Himali Men’s Endeavor Fleece Hoodie
Hooded Fleece Jacket
Himali Men’s Endeavor Fleece Hoodie
$180, 15.5 oz./439.4g (men’s medium)
Sizes: men’s S-XL
himali.com
On January days of backcountry skiing in Idaho’s Boise Mountains and Galena Summit area, moving constantly between cold shade and warm sunshine, with temps ranging from single digits to the high 20s Fahrenheit and a cool breeze at times, I wore this hooded, full-zip fleece jacket all day: both as my outer layer while climbing uphill and under a shell while skiing downhill. I never took this hoodie off—very unusual for me when skiing in the backcountry—and remained comfortable the entire time. That illustrates why the Himali Endeavor Fleece Hoodie ranks among the most versatile fleece hoodies and other breathable insulated jackets I’ve reviewed.
The 10 Best Backpacking Trips in Yosemite
By Michael Lanza
After more than three decades of exploring all over Yosemite on numerous backpacking trips, I’ve learned two big lessons about it: First of all, few places inspire the same powerful combination of both awe and adventure. And Yosemite’s backcountry harbors such an abundance of soaring granite peaks, waterfalls, lovely rivers and creeks, and shimmering alpine lakes—plus, over 700,000 acres of designated wilderness and 750 miles of trails—that you can explore America’s third national park literally for decades and not run out of five-star scenery.
Lists: Sidebar
In the right had sidebar you can see the Sidebar list. This List is set to 1 column and only displays the Featured Image, Title and Category. This is designed for Widgets, a narrow column or as part of a grid (like in our next List).
To add this style the Widget requires a CSS Class of:
wpsp-cardDispatch comes with Widget Classes Plugin installed. This provides this function.
List: Header
The Header list as seen on the Front Page requires a list containing only 5 posts. And can accomodate most of the content elements. Which are only displayed on the large leader post.
To add this style the Header Element requires the following element classes:
wpsp-grid wpsp-cardList: Simple
This is output using the wpsp-card inserted into a containing DIV like so:
<div class="wpsp-card">shortcode goes here</dib>
List: Simple Sidebar
Nothing fancy here, just a list being output using the a Widget in the sidebar.