SHould I Use a Wordpress 3.0 Custom Post Type?

Question

Hello-

I am coding a wordpress theme for a magazine. One aspect of the site, is that the homepage is static, and it features the current issue of the magazine in one area of the homepage. I need help figuring out the most practical way of replacing content for the most recent issue on the homepage.

Basically, every month, an image, as well as a title and a short paragraph of text will change on the homepage. My homepage is a static page (from a template). I would like the client to be able to change the picture/text from the back end of wordpress. That said, is the best way to go about this is to write a custom post type?

This is unrelated to the blog (posts section). There is probably a very simple way of going about this. Any ideas?

Answer 1

YES! Custom Post types was the solution. The answer is fully outlined here:link text

Basically, I added this to my functions.php file:

add_action( 'init', 'create_my_post_types' );

function create_my_post_types() {
    register_post_type( 'current_issue',
        array(
            'labels' => array(
                'name' => __( 'Current Issues' ),
                'singular_name' => __( 'Current Issue' )
            ),
            'public' => true,
            'exclude_from_search' => true,
            'supports' => array( 'title', 'editor', 'thumbnail' ),
        )
    );
}

And then added this into my homepage.php file:

<?php $loop = new WP_Query( array( 'post_type' => 'current_issue', 'posts_per_page' => 1 ) ); ?>

                <?php while ( $loop->have_posts() ) : $loop->the_post(); ?>
                    <?php the_post_thumbnail( 'current-issue' ); ?>
                    <?php the_title( '<h2><a href="' . get_permalink() . '" title="' . the_title_attribute( 'echo=0' ) . '" rel="bookmark">', '</a></h2>' ); ?>
                    <div class="readmore" style="margin-top:4px">
                     <a href="#">Read More</a>
                    </div>
                    <?php the_content(); ?>

                <?php endwhile; ?>

It worked perfectly!