Reversing WordPress Page Navigation Order

Posted on June 7, 2006 in Function, WordPress by

This article explains how to reverse the order of WordPress page navigation links.

To reverse the default (backward) order of page navigation in WordPress, open the file template-functions-links.php (in WP 2.0) or link-template.php (in WP 2.1/2.2) and scroll down to the last function, posts_nav_link() 1. Next, find the last if statement and switch the order of the following two lines:

previous_posts_link($prelabel);
   [ ignore this line ]
next_posts_link($nxtlabel, $max_page);

Next, within the first line of the same function (beginning with function posts_nav_link), switch the order of the variables $prelabel='« Previous Page' and $nxtlabel='Next Page »'.

Finally, within the loop, make sure you are calling the function with the usual parameters in place. Something like:

<?php posts_nav_link(' | ','&laquo; Previous Entries','Next Entries &raquo;') ?>

That’s it! Your post navigation links (for index and category views) should now operate according to the following principle: left links point to older posts and right links post to newer posts.

References

  • 1 Not to be confused with previous_post_link() and next_post_link(), which provide navigational links to older individual posts and newer individual posts, respectively. Oddly enough, in the case of post-by-post navigation, WordPress gets it right: left links point to older posts and right links post to newer posts; however, this is not the case with page-by-page navigation, in which WordPress adopts the reverse strategy.
Copyright2012PerishablePress

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6 Responses

  1. [ Gravatar Icon ] Ka82 says:
    August 2nd, 2006 at 6:31 am

    Thanks a lot, looks like it works at my homepage.

  2. [ Gravatar Icon ] Perishable says:
    August 2nd, 2006 at 10:41 am

    You are quite welcome!

  3. [ Gravatar Icon ] DLa says:
    September 12th, 2006 at 12:37 am

    Is there an easy way to reverse the entire collection of posts so that the oldest post comes first?

  4. [ Gravatar Icon ] Perishable says:
    September 12th, 2006 at 12:46 am

    DLa,

    As a matter of fact, adding the parameter, "&order=ASC" to the end of the query string accomplishes such a trick. Simply include the following line of PHP immediately before the WordPress Loop:

    <?php query_posts($query_string . "&order=ASC"); ?>

  5. [ Gravatar Icon ] Ryan says:
    June 26th, 2007 at 2:34 pm

    How would I get my posts to display in a random order? I can find info anywhere and this is about as close as I’ve gotted:) and help would be appreciated

  6. [ Gravatar Icon ] Ryan says:
    June 26th, 2007 at 9:10 pm

    Sorry for the horribly typed question. I was in a huge rush. You seem to have the php. brain that can answer my question.

    How do you ’shuffle’ posts that are in a category. So that each time the category is viewed they are in a new order??

    Thanks in advance