get_paginated_numbers

This function exports a set of paginated links and works even when using custom wp_query() to get the posts or pages.

The Problem

When using wp_query() to get a customized set of posts or pages the built-in pagination functions don't work ( ). The main reason for this is that they expect the query to be the default global query named $wp_query. There are solutions that involve hijacking the $wp_query variable but those felt too hacky for me.

The Solution

Pieter Goosen is the orginal author of this solution. He posted the code on Stack Exchange http://wordpress.stackexchange.com/questions/172816/paginate-links-with-ugly-and-pretty-permalinks/172818#172818 and released under GPLv2.

I have taken his code and made some modifications to remove some of the hard-coding of the HTML elements that wrap the links.

Usage

As is often the case with WP there are a few steps to get this working.

1. Copy the get_paginated_numbers() function and put it in your functions.php file. It's also possible to create a plugin for this but because the use of it is mostly tied to the display of a particular theme that's not necessary.
2. Call the function in one of your template files where you want the pagination to appear. See Examples Uses below for specifics.

Example Uses

Query Setup The examples assume that you have a custom query named $the_query. This query should be set up to make use of the paged query_var otherwise the query won't work properly.

$paged = ( get_query_var('paged') ) ? get_query_var('paged') : 1;
$the_query = new WP_Query( array( 'category_name' => 'my-category', 'posts_per_page' => 3, 'paged' => $paged ));

When you're using paging, WordPress will add /page/x/ to the URL for the page where X is replaced with the current page number. It doesn't do this on the first page. So $paged is set by checking to see if there is a page set in the URL, uses that number if it is set and if it is not set uses 1.

The next line runs the WP_QUERY function. This example shows one that pulls posts from the my-category. It also uses the 'posts_per_page' => 3 setting. This is used when you might want to display a numbe of page (like thumbnails of posts to the user) and want to only display a certain amount at a time. You can change 3 to the number of posts you want to display at a time. These are optional but often used when doing paging.

Basic Example

The most basic use is to call the function and pass in your query variable (for all of our examples we use $the_query )

echo get_paginated_numbers( [ 'query' => $the_query ]);

You can also put the argument into a separate variable like this:

<?php
  $args = [
    'query' => $the_query
  ];
  echo get_paginated_numbers( $args );
?>

That allows you to add more parameters later.

Full Example

This example shows how to use the function to output a paginated list that Bootstrap expects. Here it wraps the list in a ul element and puts each link in an li elment.

  <?php
    $args = [
      'query' => $the_query,
      'output_wrap' => 'ul',
      'output_class' => 'pagination',
      'current_wrap' => 'li',
      'current_class' => 'active',
      'page_wrap' => 'li',
      'page_class' => '',
      'link_class' => '',
      'show_page_count' => false    
    ];
    echo get_paginated_numbers( $args )
?>