custom orderby meta wp_query "fix"

I post this here because I had issues with a custom loop ordered by views. It didn't show posts that didn't have the views meta_key.

Run this once in your functions.php and remove after.. or let it sit there but there really is no need for it.

This code adds a meta_key views if the post doesn't have one and fills the value with a 0.

add_action( 'init', 'post_views_default' );

function post_views_default() {

    if ( get_option( 'post_views_setup_has_run' ) )
        return;

    $args = array(
        'posts_per_page' => -1,
        'fields' => 'ids',
        'post_type' => array( 'post', 'page' )
    );
    $viewsToZero = new WP_Query( $args );

    foreach ( $viewsToZero->posts as $post ){

        if ( ! get_post_meta( $post->ID, 'views', true ) )
            add_post_meta( $post->ID, 'views', 0, true );
    }

    add_option( 'post_views_setup_has_run', 'yes', $deprecated = '', $autoload = 'yes' );
}

[lesterchan]

I am a bit skeptical about adding this, why not hook it to the publish post hook instead?

Sorry, I wasn't clear enough. I didn't mean to get this into the plugin. I just posted this here for future reference if anyone had the same problem.

This code is meant to run only once, then delete it. Could be made into a tiny plugin or as a setting in your plugin.

PS: hooking it to the publish post hook doesn't add it to all posts that don't already have a meta_key views.

[lesterchan]

Arh I see! Cool, let me apply a label to it and keep it open

[ste93cry]

as I have the same problem, could we run that code during the activation of the plugin and then add the metadata for newer posts in the publish post hook? I'm a Wordpress beginner, but I think we would fix the problem one time for all. I consider this issue a bug, not a feature request. Btw, the code posted in the previous posts doesn't work. These lines

if ( ! get_post_meta( $post->ID, 'views', true ) )
    add_post_meta( $post->ID, 'views', 0, true );

should be changed to

if ( ! get_post_meta( $post, 'views', true ) )
    add_post_meta( $post, 'views', 0, true );

[hossinasaadi]

i create a pull request for that! #39
hope its helpful