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.
Table of Contents
- 1 General ( and important ) information
- 2 List: Standard
- 2.1 The Eunuch by Jonathan Kos-Read
- 2.2 A short history of the First Sino-Japanese War
- 2.3 “The Sounds of Taiwan” 2021 New Year Concert Performs to Packed Audience in Taiwan and Live Streams to the World
- 2.4 Hiking in China by Mable-Ann Chang
- 2.5 Content Wrap (WPSP Only)
- 2.6 Featured Image
- 2.7 Meta above title
- 2.8 Entry Title forced to 2 lines
- 3 List: Align
- 4 The Catastrophic Explosion of Beijing’s Wanggongchang Arsenal, 1626
- 5 30 Foods that might soon disappear because of climate change
- 6 The Best & Most Popular Chinese Video Games
- 7 Top Chinese Mobile Brands
- 8 Interview with The Invisible Man: Liu Bolin
- 9 Interview with the Artist & Photographer Pixy Liao
- 10 Lists: Sidebar
- 11 List: Header
- 12 List: Simple
- 13 List: Simple Sidebar
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:
The Eunuch by Jonathan Kos-Read
The Emperor has brutally killed one of his concubines, something which, everyone admits, he has every right to do… Or did he? In the bitterly…
A short history of the First Sino-Japanese War
The First Sino-Japanese War (中日甲午戰爭, Zhōngrì Jiǎwǔ Zhànzhēng) was an armed conflict that took place between July 25, 1894, and April 17, 1895, between the…
“The Sounds of Taiwan” 2021 New Year Concert Performs to Packed Audience in Taiwan and Live Streams to the World
Stan Shih, co-producer, brings the third annual New Year concert by the One Song Orchestra to music lovers in Taiwan as the island continues to…
Hiking in China by Mable-Ann Chang
16
16 For hikers, China offers a unique combination of varied terrains, depth of history and culture, and also safety. Far beyond its massive cities, the Middle…
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>
The Catastrophic Explosion of Beijing’s Wanggongchang Arsenal, 1626
3 1
3 1 The Great Tianqi Explosion (天啟 大 爆炸) or the Wanggongchang Explosion (王恭 廠 大 爆炸) was a catastrophic accident that occurred on May 30, 1626, the causes of which are still partially unknown. Related article: 1490 Ch’ing-yang Meteor Shower The explosion contributed to the weakening of the Ming dynasty, already tried by natural disasters, conflicts…
30 Foods that might soon disappear because of climate change
15 1
15 1 When it comes to climate change, many people think more about climatic and atmospheric events, linked to the increase and decrease in our planet’s temperatures and possible natural disasters. Some envision apocalyptic cinematic scenarios, but other consequences of climate change are more subtle, which may not immediately appear catastrophic, instead might have a huge impact…
The Best & Most Popular Chinese Video Games
12 1
12 1 The Chinese video game industry in the last two decades has grown dramatically and some large companies have managed to establish themselves internationally. Companies like Tencent now control an important slice of the global gaming industry. Tencent for example, in addition to having full ownership of Riot Games, Funcom, Supercell, has also invested heavily in…
Top Chinese Mobile Brands
3 1
3 1 China’s electronics industry is widely recognized as one of the largest in the world. Over the years, the Chinese technology industry has refined and specialized in the production of high-end smartphones. Smartphones in China have led to the arrival of a real social and technological revolution, and now it is no longer possible to lead…
Interview with The Invisible Man: Liu Bolin
14 1
14 1 Society, contradictory relationships between humans and the civilizations are one of the main themes in Liu Bolin artworks Liu Bolin is an artist from Shandong, well-known for his artistic works in performance, photography, and social activism. He received his BA from Shandong College of Arts in 1995, and his MA from the Central Academy of…
Interview with the Artist & Photographer Pixy Liao
13 1
13 1 Pixy Liao: the balance of power in a romantic relationships with authenticity and vulnerability. Born and raised in Shanghai, Pixy Yijun Liao is a multidisciplinary artist currently resides in Brooklyn, NY. After graduating with a Bachelor of Science degree, Pixy moved to the United States to pursue an MFA in Photography at the University of…
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-card
Dispatch 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-card
List: 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.
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