Need PHP help for sorting an array

Well, you can just pull out all the bookmarks in category 1 using just wp_list_bookmarks (set echo=0) and separate them into three pieces.

The idea of a limit incorporates an offset into it, in this particular case. Because it’s using mySql’s LIMIT function, limit can actually be LIMIT offset,limit.

php
$array = get_bookmarks('category=1');
$columnlength = (int)count($array)/3;
?>
<div class="col1"><?php wp_list_bookmarks(array(
'limit'=>'0,'.$columnlength,
'category'=>1,
) ); ?></div>

<div class="col2"><?php wp_list_bookmarks(array(
'limit'=>$columnlength.','.$columnlength,
'category'=>1,
) ); ?></div>

<div class="col3"><?php wp_list_bookmarks(array(
'limit'=>$columnlength*2.','.$columnlength+2,
'category'=>1,
) ); ?></div>

Might work. You might need to throw some +1’s in there, I didn’t think the logic entirely through.

Could you do it entirely with HTML and CSS? Wrap each bookmark in a floating div with 33% width, and your bookmarks should start to form 3 columns on their own…

something like:

<div id="bookmarks">
     <div style="width: 30%; float: left" class="float-mark">Bookmark</div>
     ... (continued for all bookmarks)
 </div>

Floating all the bookmarks left would work, the problem is then they would not order up vertically but horizontally. Not a problem if you don’t care about the order though.

Wow. Thanks everyone for the quick responses there ??

I’m going these out this morning and see what sorts it out. I’ll report back here later ??

@freekill Thanks for the suggestion, but Otto42 had it right about them needing to order vertically, and what you suggest could probably be achieved in a less html code intensive way with:

<ul id="bookmarks">
<li>bookmark 1</li>
<li>bookmark 2</li>
<!-- etc -->
</ul>

With a CSS rules of:

#bookmarks {
  width: 500px; /* or relevant width */
}

#bookmarks li {
  float: left;
  width: 30%;
  padding-right: 3%;
}

Potentially you probably already knew this!

Ok. I’m encountering some trouble, but I’m assuming it’s my lack of basic PHP knowledge here!

I have a few different links pages around the site in question, and as a result have created one links-page template which is called for each of these pages. Within the links page template I’m stating if is_page 22, display links in this manner, if is_page 45, display this way, etc.

So I’ve decided that I only need to go with two columns, as 3 cols was two crowded. I’m using this variation of the code Otto42 put up, and while the page in question loads, the only code that’s rendering is my div’s – so there’s an issue with the wp_list_bookmarks..

// previous if statements for other pages

} elseif (is_page('67')) {
  $array = get_bookmarks('category=12');
  $columnlength = (int)count($array)/2;
  ?>
  <div class="support-col1">
   <?php wp_list_bookmarks(array( 'limit'=>'0,'.$columnlength, 'category'=>12, ) ); ?>
  </div>
  <div class="support-col2">
   <?php wp_list_bookmarks(array( 'limit'=>$columnlength.','.$columnlength+1, 'category'=>12, ) ); ?>
  </div>
  <?php
	} else { // final fallback for other links pages }; ?>

Hmmm.. That looks like it should work to me.

Try setting ‘categorize’=>0 in the list bookmarks call.

Thanks for sticking with me on this one! Still no joy with categorize. Here’s the full code that I’m using, in case something else is throwing things out. I think the else statements are fine as it’s sending out the <div class=”support-col1″> but nothing in between..

<?php if (is_page('53'))  {
$cats = get_categories("type=link&hierarchical=0&include=4");
 foreach ($cats as $cat) {
  echo '<h2>'.$cat->cat_name.'</h2>';
  echo '<ul>';
  $books = get_bookmarks("category=$cat->cat_ID");
  foreach ($books as $book) {
   echo '<li><p><a href="'.$book->link_url.'">'.$book->link_name.'</a></p>';
   echo '<p>'.$book->link_description.'</p>';
   echo '</li>';
  } // end books loop
 echo '</ul>';
 } // end cats loop;
 } elseif (is_page('67')) {
  $array = get_bookmarks('category=12');
  $columnlength = (int)count($array)/2;
  ?>
  <div class="support-col1">
  <?php wp_list_bookmarks(array( 'limit'=>'0,'.$columnlength, 'category'=>12,'categorize'=>0 ) ); ?>
  </div>
  <div class="support-col2">
  <?php wp_list_bookmarks(array( 'limit'=>$columnlength.','.$columnlength+1, 'category'=>12,'categorize'=>0 ) ); ?>
  </div>
  <?php
 } else {
  $cats = get_categories("type=link&hierarchical=0&exclude=4,12");
  foreach ($cats as $cat) {
  echo '<h2>'.$cat->cat_name.'</h2>';
  echo '<ul>';
  $books = get_bookmarks("category=$cat->cat_ID");
  foreach ($books as $book) {
  echo '<li><p><a href="'.$book->link_url.'">'.$book->link_name.'</a></p>';
  echo '<p>'.$book->link_description.'</p>';
  echo '</li>';
 } // end books loop
 echo '</ul>';
 } // end cats loop;
};?>

This line is a bit confusing…
$columnlength = (int)count($array)/2;

Try this:
$columnlength = (int)((count($array))/2);

Ensure that it’s an int and not some kind of float or something.

Ok. That partially worked! It’s now displaying two unordered lists with half the number of bookmarks listed!

Only problem that remains… it’s showing the same items in each list! So it’s sussed out that there are 68 bookmarks in that category, and is displaying the first 34 from each list.

Thanks for sticking at this for me (I think you’re going to deserve a beer at the end of this ??

I had a tinker and got it working.. I realised that I was too close and it had to be something simple. Turns out that I had a +1 in there that wasn’t necessary…

The correct code has ended up at:

<?php
$array = get_bookmarks('category=12');
$columnlength = (int)((count($array))/2);
?>
<div class="support-col1">
 <?php wp_list_bookmarks(array( 'limit'=>'0,'.$columnlength, 'category'=>12,'categorize'=>0 ) ); ?>
</div>
<div class="support-col2">
 <?php wp_list_bookmarks(array( 'limit'=>$columnlength.','.$columnlength, 'category'=>12,'categorize'=>0 ) ); ?>
</div>

Thanks for the help Otto! Once the site is live I’ll send on a wee link so you can see what I was doing ??

And a wee beer should be flying towards you too ??

I used this my three columns – and I have just one quick problem. How do I get rid of the h2 header? ~thanks

Ooo, got it! For those who need it:

<?php wp_list_bookmarks(array( 'limit'=>'0,'.$columnlength, 'categorize'=>0, 'title_li' =>0) ); ?>

Thanks for everyone’s hard work on this thread! Hopefully WP will add an offset parameter to make this a wee easier.

Great reading… One question, though… How would I achieve the same thing but with the category loop intact? I need to show the list in exactly the same way as above but with the categories on top of the links.

That is, I need to fetch all categories and all links (bookmarks) and then list them in three columns. If I change the categorize to 1, then all the links (bookmarks) show up in the first column only but with the categories on top of the links. Using categorize with the value zero gives me the columns but with no category names.

Help would be appreciated.