Sorting posts by a date but not the published date?

[NicktheGeek]

It is possible to sort via a custom field, but it is not a simple solution and cannot be done with the widget as is.

To sort via a custom field you would need to write a function to associate the post data with the post meta in an array and then sort the data in the array before outputting the post data. This isn't a terribly easy task, which is why so many event plugins fall apart.

Basically you query your posts and then setup your array from that

PHP Code:

global $post;
$post_by_event = array();

//start your loop

//fetch your event date
$event = get_post_meta($post->ID, event, true);

//fetch post data. This is built as a string but you will likely want more than this.
$data= '<h2>' . get_the_title() . '</h2>' .get_the_content();

$post_by_event[$event] = $data;

//end the loop

//sort and output your array
rsort($post_by_event);
foreach ($post_by_event as $key => $val) {
    echo $val;
} 


As I said in the notations, this is really overly simplistic, but as this is a support not customization forum it should help you get to where you are going.

Also, as I said, the whole thing is really difficult to pull off correctly. In this case it would require a very specific date format to sort correctly. You would probably want a more user friendly date format/ This requires a fair bit more code to pull off.