I’m working on building a custom content management system with WordPress and I’m nearly finished. The main challenge I’m facing right now is figuring out how to create a page that shows archived posts from just one specific category, including any subcategories that belong to it. I’ve been trying different approaches but haven’t found a solution that works properly yet. Has anyone dealt with this before? I would really appreciate any suggestions or code examples that might help me get this working. I’m looking for a way to filter the archive display so it only includes posts from the selected category tree instead of showing everything mixed together.
if u wanna show just one cateogory with subcats, try making a custom template with wp_query. use category__in for child IDs – get_term_children() is handy for that. also, set posts_per_page for pagination. way easier than fiddlin with main query.
I hit this same problem on a magazine site last year. Don’t mess with the main query - build a custom shortcode instead. Use get_categories() with the parent parameter to grab subcategories, then loop through them with WP_Query. Keeps everything clean and won’t break other parts of your site. Pro tip: use category__and instead of category__in if you need posts from multiple subcategories. Custom fields work great for storing category display preferences too. Watch out for WordPress caching category queries - clear your object cache when testing or you’ll go crazy. This setup’s perfect when you need different layouts for different category trees.
Hit this same problem six months back on a client project. Best solution I found was hooking into pre_get_posts to modify the main query on category pages. Use get_term_children() to pull in all subcategories when someone views a parent category. Just check you’re on a category page with is_category() first, then modify the query to grab child terms. I also built a custom page template using WP_Query with specific category params - gives you way more control. Watch out for pagination though, it’ll break if you mess up the query modifications. This approach beats filtering posts after they’re already queried.