This is an update on the progress of this thread which I’m pleased to say through the excellent support of the Symbiostock team, we now have fully functioning!
The following might help others wishing to also add the ability to sort by EXIF time/date taken in the woocommrece front end.
The first step is to assign the required EXIF data in Symbiostock settings (a new feature) …
go to – symbiostock/settings/Read Extra Metadata
Add >> “DateTimeOriginal” [without Quotes]
This will add the “ss_exif_DateTimeOriginal” meta and corresponding EXIF date/time value as a custom meta entry for every new image product uploaded.
(If you need to apply this to all of your previous image products, check the box “Force Reading of Extra Metadata” which will add the new meta data automatically to 1000 images per day in your back catalogue. (remember to de-select this once all images have been updated))
Next you need to add the following code to your active theme’s functions.php …
* Adds WooCommerce catalog sorting options using postmeta, such as custom fields
**/
function symbiostock_add_postmeta_ordering_args( $sort_args ) {
$orderby_value = isset( $_GET['orderby'] ) ? wc_clean( $_GET['orderby'] ) : apply_filters( 'woocommerce_default_catalog_orderby', get_option( 'woocommerce_default_catalog_orderby' ) );
switch( $orderby_value ) {
// Name your sortby key whatever you'd like; must correspond to the $sortby in the next function
case 'File-Time-Asc':
$sort_args['orderby'] = 'meta_value';
// Sort by meta_value because we're using alphabetic sorting
$sort_args['order'] = 'asc';
$sort_args['meta_key'] = 'ss_exif_DateTimeOriginal';
// use the meta key you've set for your custom field, i.e., something like "ss_exif_DateTimeOriginal"
break;
case 'File-Time-Desc':
$sort_args['orderby'] = 'meta_value';
// We use meta_value_num here because points are a number and we want to sort in numerical order
$sort_args['order'] = 'desc';
$sort_args['meta_key'] = 'ss_exif_DateTimeOriginal';
break;
}
return $sort_args;
}
add_filter( 'woocommerce_get_catalog_ordering_args', 'symbiostock_add_postmeta_ordering_args' );
// Add these new sorting arguments to the sortby options on the frontend
function symbiostock_add_new_postmeta_orderby( $sortby ) {
// Adjust the text as desired
$sortby['File-Time-Asc'] = __( 'Sort by: Time Taken Asc', 'woocommerce' );
$sortby['File-Time-Desc'] = __( 'Sort by: Time Taken Desc', 'woocommerce' );
return $sortby;
}
add_filter( 'woocommerce_default_catalog_orderby_options', 'symbiostock_add_new_postmeta_orderby' );
add_filter( 'woocommerce_catalog_orderby', 'symbiostock_add_new_postmeta_orderby' );
That’s it! You should now have two new options in the woocommerce’s ‘sort by’ drop down box allowing you to sort images by EXIF time taken in ascending and descending order.
You can modify these setting as you like to order by any of the EXIF values that your camera may output (and hasn’t been stripped by any editing software).
Of course we immediately found out subsequently that one of our photographers had his camera’s date set to a previous year, which totally screws up the whole principle! so that is a lesson learned – make sure your camera’s setting are up to date!
Hope this helps other users – Thanks again to the Symbiostock team for their awesome support and speedy implementation of this function.
