Hi,

I'd like to use a specific-tag related-post function like the below, but would like to use it in the sidebar. I have no idea how to do that . Would really appreciate your thoughts. I tried clumsily to add it to footer.php, but I don't think that's the right way to do it (and nothing seemed to happen). I looked at the widget tabs in Atahualpa options, but didn't quite understand how all that works. Basically, I'd like to add the following functionality to the right sidebar.

<?php
$tags = wp_get_post_tags($post->ID);
  if ($tags) {
  $first_tag = $tags[0]->term_id;
  $args=array(
  'tag__in' => array($first_tag),
     'post__not_in' => array($post->ID),
     'showposts'=>5,
     'caller_get_posts'=>1
    );

  $rel_posts = new WP_Query($args);
   if( $rel_posts->have_posts() ) {
   while ($rel_posts->have_posts()) : $rel_posts->the_post(); ?>

<div class="rel_posts">
<div class="rel_thumb"><a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>" title="<?php the_title(); ?>"><?php the_post_thumbnail(array(130,130)); ?></a></div>
<div class="rel_link"><a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark" title="<?php the_title(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></div> 
</div>
<?php
endwhile; 
}
}
?>   

<div class="clearer"></div>

Appreciate your time. Thanks a lot.

add 'text' widget to the sidebar, add the code to it then get the 'exec-php' plugin

Originally Posted by juggledad

add 'text' widget to the sidebar, add the code to it then get the 'exec-php' plugin

Hi. Thanks a lot. Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to work. I get nothing there except the text widget header. I thought perhaps it was that particular exec-php plugin and another might do the trick, so installed another php executor called Shortcode Exec PHP. This one also didn't work but it outputs some kind of debug information which might be of use. It outputs this into the sidebar area where it should execute --

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected '<' in /home/main_folder/public_html/mysite.com/wp-content/plugins/shortcode-exec-php/shortcode-exec-php-class.php(893) : eval()'d code on line 1

I don't know if that helps. So exec-php doesn't seem to want to execute it and this one outputs that. When that related post PHP code is placed in index.php though, it works fine. So far, it doesn't want to play ball in the sidebar.

actually it is being executed, put

echo 'hello there';

and you will see it prints out. The problem is that your code is not working

Okay, I think the problem is it needs to be in the loop so as to be called from tags in the post. When it's in the sidebar, it won't pick up the post's tags. If I put the code in the loop and then use exec-php with just this in a widget --

<div class="rel_posts">
<div class="rel_thumb"><a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>" title="<?php the_title(); ?>"><?php the_post_thumbnail(array(130,130)); ?></a></div>
<div class="rel_link"><a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark" title="<?php the_title(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></div> 
</div>

I can obviously put the current post in the sidebar because that's really just a stripped down, almost independent functionality anyway. How can I make it echo the functionality that shows in the actual post or force it to read the tags from the post?