How to filter category posts by date?

Question

I am looking to have a drop down menu at the top of a category page that will allow me to then filter the posts by date.

I will most probably have to make use of custom fields, but that isn't the issue.

I know you can make a custom post query using GET style variables, but with pretty URLs enabled, I cannot seem to use the GET variables to filter specific posts (e.g. www.domain.com/category/?orderby=title&order=ASC etc etc )

I have tried looking for plugins, but nothing seems to jump out at me for what I need, and I have also noticed a lot of talk on here about similar subjects, with no decent solutions for my situation.

Answer 1

The general query would be this like :

<?php $posts = query_posts( $query_string . '&orderby=date&order=asc' ); ?>
    <?php if( $posts ) : ?>
    //whatever
            <?php foreach( $posts as $post ) : setup_postdata( $post ); ?>
        //whatever
            <p><?php the_content(); ?></p>
                <?php endforeach; ?>

    <?php endif; ?>

For dropdown, you can do something like this :

$args = $args=array(
      'cat' => $cat_id,
      'post_type' => 'post',
      'post_status' => 'publish',
      'posts_per_page' => -1,
      'orderby' => 'DATE', 
       'order' => 'ASC' // or DESC
    );

<form action="<? bloginfo('url'); ?>" method="get">
 <select name="page_id" id="page_id">
 <?php
 global $post;
 $args = array( 'numberposts' => -1);
 $posts = get_posts($args);
 foreach( $posts as $post ) : setup_postdata($post); ?>
                <option value="<? echo $post->ID; ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></option>
 <?php endforeach; ?>
 </select>
 <input type="submit" name="submit" value="view" />
 </form>

And another option :

<?php
    $cat_id = get_cat_ID('uncategorized'); //your-category
    $args=array(
      'cat' => $cat_id,
      'post_type' => 'post',
      'post_status' => 'publish',
      'posts_per_page' => -1,
      'orderby' => 'DATE', 
       'order' => 'ASC' // or DESC
    );
    $my_query = null;
    $my_query = new WP_Query($args);
    if( $my_query->have_posts() ) {
?>
    <form name="jump">
        <select name="menu">
            <?php
              while ($my_query->have_posts()) : $my_query->the_post(); ?>
                <option value="<?php the_permalink() ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></option>
                <?php

              endwhile;
            }
            ?>
        </select>
        <input type="button" onClick="location=document.jump.menu.options[document.jump.menu.selectedIndex].value;" value="Go">
    </form>

<?php
    wp_reset_query();
?>

Answer 2

i was looking for search posts by date. didn't able to found suitable solution on stackoverflow. i then printed the wp_query object and sorted this thing out. it worked for me. in my scenario m searching for posts by their title or by date. here is the code for the hook.

function SearchFilter($query) {
if ($query->is_search) {
    $query->set('post_type', 'post');
    // check if query is a date
    $search_query   = $query->query['s'];
    $date_format        = DateTime::createFromFormat('d/M/Y', $search_query);
    if ($date_format)
    {
        $dte            = date('j',$date_format->getTimestamp());
        $month          = date('n',$date_format->getTimestamp());
        $year           = date('Y',$date_format->getTimestamp());
    }
    if (isset($dte) && isset($month) && isset($year)) {
        unset($query->query['s']);
        unset($query->query_vars['s']);
        $query->query['date_query'] = array(
                    array(
                        'year'  => $year,
                        'month' => $month,
                        'day'   => $dte,
                    )
                );
        $query->set('date_query', array(
                        array(
                            'year'  => $year,
                            'month' => $month,
                            'day'   => $dte,
                        )
                    )
                );

    }
}
return $query;
}

add_filter('pre_get_posts','SearchFilter');

as u can notice this filter automatically checks if passed param is string or date. m using

$query->set('post_type', 'post')

to get results of post only other wise it will fetch page too. suppose u have date under each post u can add href to that date. so to get all posts of that date on the end of href add search param like ?s=something

http://my.blog?s=1/Jun/2015

and so on the template u dont need to write ur custom forwhile just use default template functions like have_posts()