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Displaying the most viewed posts - P2 - Meta Box + Oxygen

We are going to create a section to display the most viewed posts on the homepage built with Oxygen. Let’s take restaurants as an example of these posts.

Example of displaying the most viewed posts

Video version​

Preparation​

Since we're going to display the most viewed posts, we’ll use a third-party plugin to count the post views. It’s the Post Views Counter plugin.

For the posts, we’ll create a custom post type named Restaurants, and each restaurant will be a post of that post type.

When displaying the most viewed posts, you may wish to show more than just the title and featured image (the default fields). In this case, I’ll display extra information about the address, voucher, and logo. They'll be saved in the custom fields of the post.

1. Creating a new custom post type​

Go to Meta Box > Post Types to create a new post type for the restaurants.

Create a new custom post type

2. Creating custom fields​

Go to Meta Box > Custom Fields > Add New.

Create custom fields

After creating all the needed fields, go to the Settings tab > Location > choose Post Type as the Restaurant post type we’ve just created to apply the custom fields.

Set location for the created custom fields

In the post editor, you will see all of the newly created custom fields appear.

All created custom fields appear in the post editor

3. Counting the posts view​

Normally, there is no information about the posts’ view available in WordPress by default. We must do it on our own. Install the Post Views Counter plugin, then go to Settings > Post Views Counter and check the box next to the post type whose views you want to count.

Install Post views counter plugin

Right after that, you can see the view numbers of each restaurant appear. Based on these numbers, we’ll choose which restaurant has the most views and display it in the section.

Choose which restaurants have the most views to display in the section

4. Creating the section​

Edit a page with Oxygen, e.g., the homepage.

First, choose the Section component to contain all of the restaurant information. Then, add a Heading element and enter the title.

Add a Heading element to enter the title

4.1. Setting a condition​

To get all the posts of the Restaurant post type, select the Repeater component. Then, go to the Query section to choose the data source and set conditions.

Normally, you can choose the default or custom type to get the posts. However, in this case, I only want a specific number of posts to be displayed based on the condition, so I chose the advanced query type.

Choose Advanced query type to display specific number of posts

Now, let’s create conditions to choose which posts to display. We’ll add some query parameters as follows:

First, add a post_type parameter to specify that we’ll get only posts from the restaurant post type. In the box, as shown in the image below, enter the ID of the post type for which you want to get the data.

Add a post_type parameter

Then, add another parameter named meta_query. This aims to choose which posts in the restaurant post type are displayed.

Add a meta_query parameter

To limit the number of posts to display in the section, we add the post_per_page parameter and set the number of posts you want to display.

Add the post_per_page parameter to limit the number of posts to display

We’ve completed the condition settings. After applying, there are 6 boxes for 6 posts. It’s equivalent to the number of posts we set for the section.

There is a box for each post

4.2. Displaying the restaurants' information​

Now, it’s time to display information about each restaurant. In the div inside the Repeater component, add an Image component to display the restaurant’s image, then connect it with the post's featured image.

Add an Image component in the div that is inside the Repeater component

For the voucher information, choose a Text component and connect it to the corresponding field.

Choose a Text component for the voucher information

The next piece of restaurant information we want to display is the restaurant’s logo. Choose an Image component. Because the logo field is created by Meta Box and it returns the URL, go to the Image URL tab to get data from this field.

Choose an Image component for the restaurant's logo

To get the restaurant’s name automatically, add the Text component and connect it with the post's title.

Add the text component to get the restaurant's name

For the address information, do the same with the Voucher field. Add a Text component, then connect it to the Address field.

Add a text component

That’s all. Now, the information for all of the most viewed restaurants is now available on the homepage.

All the information of the most viewed restaurants is available

5. Styling the section​

For styling, go back to the page editor with Oxygen. Then, choose each component and change the settings to style them.

You can also add some CSS in the Custom CSS tab to have a more advanced style.

Add some CSS code

Go to the homepage; all the featured restaurants are displayed as we want.

The final result