Post Views Counter – Custom Field

It is not stored in custom field.

But the native WP Query can handle the orderby post_views parameter in cas you need it.

Is it possible for ‘orderby’ => ‘post_views’ to work with get_recent_posts() ?

function get_recent_posts($cat_slug, $num, $offset = null){
    $args = array(
      'numberposts' => $num,
      'category' => get_category_by_slug($cat_slug)->cat_ID,
      'order' => 'DESC',
      'offset' => $offset,
      'post_type' => 'post',
      'post_status' => 'publish',
      'orderby'     => 'post_views',
      'meta_query' => array(
        array(
          'key' => '_thumbnail_id',
          )
        )
      );
    return wp_get_recent_posts( $args );
  }

It should work already. The wp_get_recent_posts() is nothing more than the get_posts() function wrapper.

BUT, you have to set “suppress_filters” parameter to false.