[WordPress] Show only one sticky post at the top of a list of posts

Question

On my homepage I have a list of posts, and at the top I want to show only the most recent "sticky" post, followed by the rest of the posts. Is there a way to achieve this?

Bonus points for only using one query_posts().

(I know how to do it using two query_posts(), but I'm looking for a less taxing solution.)

Answer 1

You'll need to tweak this code a bit but it should get you going in the right direction. What this is doing is modifying the sql query used to pull the posts.

Before your query_posts(); add the following code:

function selectSticky( $sql ){
    global $sticky_posts, $wpdb;

    $sticky_posts = get_option( 'sticky_posts' );
    $sticky_posts = implode( ', ', $sticky_posts );

    return "IF( {$wpdb->posts}.ID IN ( $sticky_posts ), 2, 1 ) as sticky, ".$sql;
}

function whereSticky( $sql ){
    global $sticky_posts, $wpdb;

    $sql .= " OR {$wpdb->posts}.ID IN ( $sticky_posts )";
    return $sql;
}

function orderSticky( $sql ){
     $sql = "sticky DESC, ".$sql;
     return $sql;
}

// just for checking sql, you can remove this once everything works
function requestSticky( $sql ){
     echo $sql."<br/><br/>";
     return $sql;
}

add_action( 'posts_fields', 'selectSticky' );
add_action( 'posts_where', 'whereSticky' );
add_action( 'posts_orderby', 'orderSticky' );
add_action( 'posts_request', 'requestSticky' );

Answer 2

Have you tried any plugins? For example this? http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-sticky/ I may be easier to use/modify them.