Simple Related Posts By Tag – Genesis 2

When I changed my WordPress theme from Thesis to Genesis, I had to make some major changes to my website. This included customising code that performs certain functions so it would work for me in a Genesis 2.0 website that had new hooks and HTML5.

One of the customisations I needed was to manually add in simple related posts at the bottom of each single post. I did not want thumbnail images, just simple text.

I ran into a few problems:

1. The code snippets I had were for Thesis or other WordPress themes.
2. Any related posts code had a thumbnail image included. I wanted text only.
3. Genesis 2 had new hooks so the tutorials they had did not help at all.
4. I needed css to match my new theme.

Here is a screenshot of what my related posts looks like now. Of course I sorted out the problems.

So if you have the new Genesis 2 and you have a html5 child theme then this tutorial is for you. If you have the old Genesis then you will need to edit the Genesis hooks I used. (genesis_entry_footer)

Original code here.

/** Display related posts in Genesis */
function related_posts_tags () {
if ( is_single ( ) ) {
global $post;
$count = 0;
$postIDs = array( $post->ID );
$related = '';
$tags = wp_get_post_tags( $post->ID );
foreach ( $tags as $tag ) {
$tagID[] = $tag->term_id;
}
$args = array(
'tag__in'               => $tagID,
'post__not_in'          => $postIDs,
'showposts'             => 5,
'ignore_sticky_posts'   => 1,
'tax_query'             => array(
array(
'taxonomy'  => 'post_format',
'field'     => 'slug',
'terms'     => array(
'post-format-link',
'post-format-status',
'post-format-aside',
'post-format-quote'
),
'operator'  => 'NOT IN'
)
)
);
$tag_query = new WP_Query( $args );
if ( $tag_query->have_posts() ) {
while ( $tag_query->have_posts() ) {
$tag_query->the_post();
$related .= '<li><a href="' . get_permalink() . '" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to' . get_the_title() . '">' . get_the_title() . '</a></li>';
$postIDs[] = $post->ID;
$count++;
}
}
if ( $related ) {
printf( '<div><h3>Related Posts</h3><ul>%s</ul></div>', $related );
}
wp_reset_query();
}
}
add_action( 'genesis_entry_footer', 'related_posts_tags' );


Where is the functions.php file and where do I put the code?

Remember to be careful when editing this file. Please copy your code and paste it into a notepad file for easy recovery.

1. Go to your WordPress dashboard and sign in.

2. Click on appearance, then editor.

3. On the far right, click on Theme functions or functions.php.

4. Go to the bottom of the code, paste my code in.

5. Press update file after editing.

6. Now go to the right and click on the style.css.

7. Now add the CSS to the style.css

.related-posts-tags {
background: #f5f5f5;
border: 1px solid #ddd;
margin-top: 20px;
padding: 20px;
}
.related-posts-tags h3 {
font-size: 20px;
font-weight: normal;
margin-bottom: 10px
padding: 0;
text-transform: none;
}
.related-posts-tags ul {
margin-left: 10px
}

8. Press update file at the bottom.