Working with Custom Post Types

Custom Post Type Templates

You can create custom templates for your custom post types. In the same way posts and their archives can be displayed using single.php and archive.php, you can create the templates:

• single-{post_type}.php – for single posts of a custom post type
• archive-{post_type}.php – for the archive

Where {post_type} is the post type identifier, used as the $post_type argument of the register_post_type() function.

Building upon what we’ve learned previously, you could create single-wporg_product.php and archive-wporg_product.php template files for single product posts and the archive.

Alternatively, you can use the is_post_type_archive() function in any template file to check if the query shows an archive page of a given post type, and the post_type_archive_title()  function to display the post type title.

Querying by Post Type

You can query posts of a specific type by passing the post_type key in the arguments array of the WP_Query class constructor.

<?php
$args = array(
	'post_type'      => 'product',
	'posts_per_page' => 10,
);
$loop = new WP_Query($args);
while ( $loop->have_posts() ) {
	$loop->the_post();
	?>
	<div class="entry-content">
		<?php the_title(); ?>
		<?php the_content(); ?>
	</div>
	<?php
}

This loops through the latest ten product posts and displays the title and content of them one by one.

Altering the Main Query

Registering a custom post type does not mean it gets added to the main query automatically.

If you want your custom post type posts to show up on standard archives or include them on your home page mixed up with other post types, use the pre_get_posts action hook.

The next example will show posts from post, page and movie post types on the home page:

function wporg_add_custom_post_types($query) {
	if ( is_home() && $query->is_main_query() ) {
		$query->set( 'post_type', array( 'post', 'page', 'movie' ) );
	}
	return $query;
}
add_action('pre_get_posts', 'wporg_add_custom_post_types');