How to automatically populate a dropdown with post titles form a certain category?
I would like to achieve the following: a HR Manager posts a new vacant job in a certain category (let's say cat ID 16). For the applications we use a form that needs to be up to date and I don't want the HR Manager to touch the forms section in the website. So the drop down listing the open positions needs to be populated automatically.
Could someone give me a quick example on how to go about?
Jan Egbert
Member
I would be interested in this as well. I'm building a simple webshop in which every post is a product. The form to order the product has hidden fields prepopulated with the product title (post title) and price (custom field).
I'd like to enable people to add one or two extra products to the form. A dropdown or multiple choice field with post titles would be a great solution.
We will post a code snippet here soon. Need to put one together. But this is possible, it will require using a hook to dynamically populate the contents of the drop down.
So here is how this will have to be done. It's a little bit of a work around.
What you will have to do is add a TEXT FIELD to your form and name it what you want the post title drop down to be. What we need to do is use PHP code to change the display of a TEXT FIELD into a drop down. So instead of adding a drop down to your form, add a text field. The information will be stored in this text field.
Here is the code snippet that will transform this text field into a drop down that consists of post titles for a given category id...
Note, you will need to change the FORM ID, the CATEGORY, and the FIELD ID in this code snippet.
//Adds a filter to form id 14. Replace 14 with your actual form id
add_filter("gform_pre_render_14", populate_dropdown);
function populate_dropdown($form){
//Reading posts for "Business" category;
$posts = get_posts("category=Business");
//Creating drop down item array.
$items = array();
//Adding initial blank value.
$items[] = array("text" => "", "value" => "");
//Adding post titles to the items array
foreach($posts as $post)
$items[] = array("value" => $post->post_title, "text" => $post->post_title);
//Adding items to field id 8. Replace 8 with your actual field id. You can get the field id by looking at the input name in the markup.
foreach($form["fields"] as &$field)
if($field["id"] == 8){
$field["type"] = "select";
$field["choices"] = $items;
}
return $form;
}The form id you need to change is the 14 in this piece of the code snippet above:
add_filter("gform_pre_render_14", populate_dropdown);
The category you need to change is the name in this piece of the code snippet above:
$posts = get_posts("category=Business");
The field id you need to change is the id in this piece of the code snippet above:
if($field["id"] == 8){
You can get the field id by viewing source on the form front end, finding the field we are targeting and getting the id.
I will have to check, see if there is anything we can do to the code snippet to alter it so that you can set a default value. I'll get back with you.
Try the following.
//Adds a filter to form id 18. Replace 14 with your actual form id
add_filter("gform_pre_render_18", populate_dropdown);
function populate_dropdown($form){
//Reading posts for "Business" category;
$posts = get_posts("category=Business");
//Creating drop down item array.
$items = array();
//Adding initial blank value.
//$items[] = array("text" => "", "value" => "");
//Adding post titles to the items array
foreach($posts as $post){
$is_selected = $post->post_title == "testing" ? true : false;
$items[] = array("value" => $post->post_title, "text" => $post->post_title, "isSelected"=> $is_selected);
}
//Adding other... item
$items[] = array("text" => "Other...", "value" => "other");
//Adding items to field id 8. Replace 8 with your actual field id. You can get the field id by looking at the input name in the markup.
foreach($form["fields"] as &$field)
if($field["id"] == 7){
$field["type"] = "select";
$field["choices"] = $items;
}
return $form;
}You will need to replace "testing" on line 17 with the post title you would like selected by default.
Also, I have removed the first empty item. You can add it again by un-commenting line 13 (i.e. removing the //)
This code could be used to populate a variety of fields. But to accomplish what you want it may require tweaking the code some. This is certainly more advanced usage of the hooks that are available so PHP knowledge is pretty important.
Responded to your other post fuhrmara. What you are trying to do is different from what the subject of this post was.
Jan Egbert
Member
Thanks for this great code snippet. It got me thinking about adding a dropdown with get_the_terms(). Here is how I edited Alex's code in order to get a dropdown of shoesizes (custom taxonomy) for the current post id (I embed the same order form in every product post, but shoesizes vary):
//Adds a filter to form id 7. Replace 7 with your actual form id
add_filter( 'gform_pre_render_7', 'populate_dropdown' );
function populate_dropdown($form){
//Reading terms for current post;
global $post;
$terms = get_the_terms($post->ID, 'size');
//Creating drop down item array.
$items = array();
//Adding initial blank value.
$items[] = array("text" => "", "value" => "");
//Adding term names to the items array
foreach($terms as $term){
$is_selected = $term->name == "testing" ? true : false;
$items[] = array("value" => $term->name, "text" => $term->name, "isSelected"=> $is_selected);
}
//Adding items to field id 1. Replace 1 with your actual field id. You can get the field id by looking at the input name in the markup.
foreach($form["fields"] as &$field)
if($field["id"] == 1){
$field["type"] = "select";
$field["choices"] = $items;
}
return $form;
}Replace size in get_the_terms($post->ID, 'size'); with whatever taxonomy you want your dropdown to be pre-populated.
Good stuff Jan! If you have any interest in writing up a tutorial on this, we'd be glad to either post it here or link to it on your site.
I modified Jan's code a bit so that the dropdown will be populated with all the terms associated with a defined taxonomy rather than the current post.
//Adds a filter to form id 1. Replace 1 with your actual form id
add_filter( 'gform_pre_render_1', 'populate_dropdown' );
function populate_dropdown($form){
//Grab all Terms Associated with a Specific Taxonomy;
global $post;
$terms = get_terms('YOUR_TAXONOMY_SLUG', 'hide_empty=0&orderby=none');
//Creating drop down item array.
$items = array();
//Adding initial blank value.
$items[] = array("text" => "", "value" => "");
//Adding term names to the items array
foreach($terms as $term){
$is_selected = $term->name == "testing" ? true : false;
$items[] = array("value" => $term->name, "text" => $term->name, "isSelected"=> $is_selected);
}
//Adding items to field id 1. Replace 1 with your actual field id. You can get the field id by looking at the input name in the markup.
foreach($form["fields"] as &$field)
if($field["id"] == 5){
$field["type"] = "select";
$field["choices"] = $items;
}
return $form;
}I'm quite new to Gravity Forms so I have a very basic question...where do I put the above code snippet(s)? This post contains exactly what I am trying to do, myself.
I don't see any area in Gravity Forms to create a 'text field' in the admin panel. I see Single Line Text and Paragraph text, but there's no clear area to paste this code.
I've looked everywhere and found no documentation on how to use the more advanced functions of GF, such as dynamic field population and the above desired effect. Thanks in advance, guys!
Well, nevermind. Sometimes I think just finally getting fed up enough to post the question makes the universe answer me somehow. I added the above to functions.php and viola...very nice indeed. I can see how useful this is now. Thanks for the above code guys, fantastic work.
Edit -
Although, while I am here...does anybody know how to modify the above code to query a list of posts in a custom post type that I created in Wordpress 3 called "workshops"?
Yup, I got that and I actually figured out how to pull from 'workshops' post type.
Now my only other question is how to I get it to pull from meta data in my custom fields?
I know I need to change this section:
//Adding post titles to the items array
foreach($posts as $post)
$items[] = array("value" => $post->post_title, "text" => $post->post_title);I tried this but it didn't work:
foreach($posts as $post)
$items[] = array("value" => $post->get_post_meta($post->ID, 'Dates'), "text" => $post->$post->get_post_meta($post->ID, 'Dates'));Any ideas? I'm still very much a PHP newbie, but learning fast! :)
Also tried this, no luck...
//Adds a filter to form id 14. Replace 14 with your actual form id
add_filter("gform_pre_render_1", populate_dropdown);
function populate_dropdown($form){
//Reading posts for "Business" category;
global $post;
$posts = get_posts("post_type=calendar&showposts=99&orderby=title&order=ASC");
$date = get_post_meta($post->ID, 'Dates', false);
//Creating drop down item array.
$items = array();
//Adding post titles to the items array
foreach($posts as $post)
$items[] = array("value" => $post->date, "text" => $post->date);
//Adding items to field id 8. Replace 8 with your actual field id. You can get the field id by looking at the input name in the markup.
foreach($form["fields"] as &$field)
if($field["id"] == 27){
$field["type"] = "checkbox";
$field["choices"] = $items;
}
return $form;
}And when I think about it, I'm also looking to have it return two fields: the post title and the custom field of 'date'. Hopefully someone here has done something like this! :)
This code works fine for select fields (drop downs). But, it does not work for multiple choice or radio button fields.
foreach($form["fields"] as &$field)
if($field["id"] == 7){
$field["type"] = "select";
$field["choices"] = $items;
}I can set it to a radio type:
$field["type"] = "radio";
But, the values for the various options are always set to the "text" value.
Full example:
$gender_values = array();
$gender_values[] = array("text" => "Not Specified", "value" => "N", "isSelected" => true);
$gender_values[] = array("text" => "Male", "value" => "M");
$gender_values[] = array("text" => "Female", "value" => "F");
foreach($form["fields"] as &$field) {
if($field["id"] == 16){
$field["type"] = "radio";
$field["choices"] = $gender_values;
}
}It changed the field to a multiple choice/radio type. And the text for each option is correct. But the values are not.
<ul class='gfield_radio' id='input_17_16'>
<li class='gchoice_16_0'>
<input name='input_16' type='radio' value='Not Specified' checked='checked' id='choice_16_0' tabindex='19' />
<label for='choice_16_0'>
Not Specified
</label>
</li>
<li class='gchoice_16_1'>
<input name='input_16' type='radio' value='Male' id='choice_16_1' tabindex='20' />
<label for='choice_16_1'>
Male
</label>
</li>
<li class='gchoice_16_2'>
<input name='input_16' type='radio' value='Female' id='choice_16_2' tabindex='21' />
<label for='choice_16_2'>
Female
</label>
</li>
</ul>I am probably missing something obvious. Any ideas?
I appreciate the help.
any ideas on this? Thanks.
I'm looking for a variation on this, but seem to have a hard time with the code for functions.php. We use Gravity Forms for news submission ('Tip the Editor'), but some people keep sending in stuff we've already written about. Is there a way to display the latest X news items in Gravity Forms? I've tried the new HTML block with some PHP test code, but unfortunately the html block doesn't take PHP.
The examples here are all for dropdowns and I just need an unordered list of e.g. 15 latest posts:
get_posts('numberposts=15')
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
I actually would love to have a PHP block as extra to the HTM block. Then I could show our latest X custom news tweets as well.
Hi Jean Paul,
You can update the contents of any Gravity Form field using the gform_pre_render filter. Here is some code that accomplishes what you are after (http://pastie.org/1059179) and here is a sample of what it will generally look like once implemented (http://grab.by/5zNw)
Quick Breakdown:
add_filter('gform_pre_render_7', 'customize_html_blocks');
Here is where we assign the customize_html_blocks function to be run by the gform_pre_render filter. The number at the end is the ID of the form I used to test this code. You should change this to the form id you wish to implement this code for.
$posts = get_posts('numberposts=5');
foreach($posts as $post) {
$content .= '<li><a href="' . get_permalink($post->ID) . '" target="_blank">' . $post->post_title . '</a></li>';
}
$content = '<h3>Latest News</h3><ul>' . $content . '</ul>';Next we get the posts we want to display and then loop through each returned post getting the post title and any other information we want to display about the post. You'll notice that I also wrapped my post title with a link to the post and a list item so everything will look nice and orderly when we display this on the front-end. The last line gives the whole section a title (Latest News) and wraps all of our post title list items in an unordered list.
$form['fields']['0']['content'] = $content;
return $form;This last bit updates the form object that is originally passed to this filter function with the content we just created. You'll need to figure out which field you're updating by viewing the source and looking at the field id. In my case it was "0". Then all there is left to do is return the updated form object. And done! :)
My pleasure. Let me know if this works for you. :)
Actually it doesn't, but I'm probably overlooking something. As from previous posts in this discussion I understand I need to add a text field (Paragraph Text) (also tried with HTML block) and look up the field ID in the source code, which is 41:
<li id='field_1_41' class='gfield' style='display:none;'><label class='gfield_label' for='input_1_41'>Untitled</label><div class='ginput_container'><textarea name='input_41' id='input_1_41' class='textarea medium' tabindex='4' rows='10' cols='50'></textarea></div></li>
Does the Paragraph Text block need any additional settings, like a special label or a checkbox in Advanced?
Current code in function.php is this:
/*
Gravity Forms - Custom Hooks
*/
// Customize HTML Blocks
add_filter('gform_pre_render_1', 'customize_html_blocks');
function customize_html_blocks($form) {
$posts = get_posts('numberposts=5');
foreach($posts as $post) {
$content .= '<li><a href="' . get_permalink($post->ID) . '" target="_blank">' . $post->post_title . '</a></li>';
}
$content = '<h3>Latest News</h3><ul>' . $content . '</ul>';
$content = 'Test';
$form['fields']['41']['content'] = $content;
return $form;
}I've setup an example page where this form (ID:1) is live. Please choose 'Nieuwstips' in the first dropdown to show the field where the post list should be.
Thanks for you additional help!
Hey Jean, the example I provided assumes you are using an HTML block field. Sorry, I probably should have specified that. I think that'll do the trick for you. Let me know.
OK. I originally had that and have once again added an HTML block (and removed the paragraph text). It's still not populating the block with the code in functions.php (it should output 'Test'), but the html block is just empty.
<li id="field_1_42" class="gfield gfield_html gfield_html_formatted gfield_no_follows_desc" style="display: list-item; "></li>
functions.php
/*
Gravity Forms - Custom Hooks
*/
// Customize HTML Blocks
add_filter('gform_pre_render_1', 'customize_html_blocks');
function customize_html_blocks($form) {
$posts = get_posts('numberposts=5');
foreach($posts as $post) {
$content .= '<li><a href="' . get_permalink($post->ID) . '" target="_blank">' . $post->post_title . '</a></li>';
}
$content = '<h3>Latest News</h3><ul>' . $content . '</ul>';
$content = 'Test';
$form['fields']['42']['content'] = $content;
return $form;
}Does the HTML block need any additional settings, like a special label or a checkbox in Advanced?
Example page: http://www.ipadplanet.nl/gf-test/
Again, thank you for your help and sorry for the trouble. Would really like to get this going and it's probably a small oversight.
If you don't mind, could I get FTP access to this WP install? I would probably have better luck troubleshooting this if I can see the backend. You can email me at david@ounceoftalent.com.
Alright, fixed. Here is the update snippet: http://pastie.org/1060312
The issue was a bad assumption on my part.
$form['fields']['0']['content'] = $content;
This line assumes that the index of the field in the form object is the same as the field id. This is not a good assumption to make; specifically in cases where forms have been updated several times. I've replaced that line with this:
for($i = 0; $i < count($form['fields']); $i++) {
if($form['fields'][$i]['id'] == 42) {
$form['fields'][$i]['content'] = $content;
}
}What we are doing instead is looping through each field in the form object and checking if the field id of that field is the field id we are looking for (in this case "42"). If so, THEN we replace the old content with our updated content.
I've implemented this on your server. Let me know if you run into any issues. :)
David, you're my hero! Your domain should be tonsoftalent.com instead of ounceoftalent.com :D Can't thank you enough for your time and help.
What you can do is configure your drop down to "Allow field to be populated dynamically" and give it a parameter name (i.e. my_field).
You can then add "?my_field=dropdown_value" to the link that is targeting the page hosting your form.
If changing the link is not an option, you will have to use a hook.
mourgroup
Member
Hi!
I tried that but its not working when im using the code that Carl Hancock wrote on the top
//Adds a filter to form id 14. Replace 14 with your actual form id
add_filter("gform_pre_render_14", populate_dropdown);
function populate_dropdown($form){
//Reading posts for "Business" category;
$posts = get_posts("category=Business");
//Creating drop down item array.
$items = array();
//Adding initial blank value.
$items[] = array("text" => "", "value" => "");
//Adding post titles to the items array
foreach($posts as $post)
$items[] = array("value" => $post->post_title, "text" => $post->post_title);
//Adding items to field id 8. Replace 8 with your actual field id. You can get the field id by looking at the input name in the markup.
foreach($form["fields"] as &$field)
if($field["id"] == 8){
$field["type"] = "select";
$field["choices"] = $items;
}
return $form;
}Can you send me a link to the page that has the link to the form?
@Carramba This is only possible using conditional logic. Which means each variation would require you to add a drop down and manually add the values to the drop down and then use conditional logic to show/hide that drop down.
