Wordpress | Custom Post | Display Content - wordpress

Question

I am attempting to create a Wordpress theme that calls for a bespoke Post Type.
I have created the post type via functions.php. This seems to have worked and shows up in the admin area and allows me to generate posts. Code exerpt below:
// Register Custom Post Type
function courses_post_type() {
$labels = array(
'name' => _x( 'Courses', 'Post Type General Name', 'text_domain' ),
'singular_name' => _x( 'Course', 'Post Type Singular Name', 'text_domain' ),
'menu_name' => __( 'Training Courses', 'text_domain' ),
'name_admin_bar' => __( 'Course Type', 'text_domain' ),
'archives' => __( 'Course Archives', 'text_domain' ),
'parent_item_colon' => __( 'Parent Course:', 'text_domain' ),
'all_items' => __( 'All Courses', 'text_domain' ),
'add_new_item' => __( 'Add New Course', 'text_domain' ),
'add_new' => __( 'New Course', 'text_domain' ),
'new_item' => __( 'New Course', 'text_domain' ),
'edit_item' => __( 'Edit Course', 'text_domain' ),
'update_item' => __( 'Update Course', 'text_domain' ),
'view_item' => __( 'View Course', 'text_domain' ),
'search_items' => __( 'Search Courses', 'text_domain' ),
'not_found' => __( 'No courses found', 'text_domain' ),
'not_found_in_trash' => __( 'No courses found in Trash', 'text_domain' ),
'featured_image' => __( 'Featured Image', 'text_domain' ),
'set_featured_image' => __( 'Set featured image', 'text_domain' ),
'remove_featured_image' => __( 'Remove featured image', 'text_domain' ),
'use_featured_image' => __( 'Use as featured image', 'text_domain' ),
'insert_into_item' => __( 'Insert into item', 'text_domain' ),
'uploaded_to_this_item' => __( 'Uploaded to this item', 'text_domain' ),
'items_list' => __( 'Items list', 'text_domain' ),
'items_list_navigation' => __( 'Items list navigation', 'text_domain' ),
'filter_items_list' => __( 'Filter items list', 'text_domain' ),
);
$rewrite = array(
'slug' => 'post_type',
'with_front' => true,
'pages' => true,
'feeds' => true,
);
$args = array(
'label' => __( 'Course', 'text_domain' ),
'description' => __( 'Training Course information pages', 'text_domain' ),
'labels' => $labels,
'supports' => array( 'title', 'editor', 'excerpt', 'thumbnail', 'custom-fields', ),
'taxonomies' => array( 'category', 'post_tag' ),
'hierarchical' => true,
'public' => true,
'show_ui' => true,
'show_in_menu' => true,
'menu_position' => 5,
'menu_icon' => 'dashicons-welcome-learn-more',
'show_in_admin_bar' => true,
'show_in_nav_menus' => true,
'can_export' => true,
'has_archive' => false,
'exclude_from_search' => false,
'publicly_queryable' => true,
'query_var' => 'course',
'rewrite' => $rewrite,
'capability_type' => 'page',
);
register_post_type( 'courses', $args );
}
add_action( 'init', 'courses_post_type', 0 );
My question is how do I get the the content from the post to display in my custom theme?
I am currently stuck and encountering errors. Here is where I am upto:
I have created a template called single-course.php and for now not changed anything diffrent to my main template.
However when I go to view the post in the browser I get the error message:
Sorry, no posts matched your criteria.
Within single-course.php I have placed the code below inside the <div></div> where I would like the content to display.
If it helps to visual what I am trying to achieve overall is a custom post type (in my case each post is a training course) and a page that displays each individual custom post. Equally it could be shop and custom post is a product where my single-course.php is supposed to display A particular products information inside a div set aside for the purpose.
// This div shows the post title using a wordpress php function
<div class="page-title bg-alpha-moderateblue">
<h1 style="margin:0px;"><?php echo get_the_title(); ?></h1>
</div>
//This div should show the post or in my case the training course overview
//From my understading I have to use the loop although I only want to SHOW THE CONTENT OF A PARTICULAR CUSTOM (course) POST.
<div class="page-content bg-white">
<?php
//Define your custom post type name in the arguments
$args = array('post_type' => 'courses');
//Define the loop based on arguments
$loop = new WP_Query( $args );
//Display the contents
while ( $loop->have_posts() ) : $loop->the_post();
?>
<h1 class="entry-title"><?php the_title(); ?></h1>
<div class="entry-content">
<?php the_content(); ?>
</div>
<?php endwhile;?>
</div>
All constructive feedback and suggestions are greatly appreaciated, thanks in advance

Answer 1

I'm not sure if you wrote all that code (from your functions.php file) yourself or if you snagged it from somewhere else but I recommend using the example code at https://codex.wordpress.org/Post_Types#Custom_Post_Types with as little customization as possible. You may also want to use the code from Wordpress' TwentySixteen single template (https://github.com/WordPress/twentysixteen/blob/master/single.php) after all, who knows Wordpress better than Wordpress? I don't mean use the code in production per say just as a starting point to help you eliminate the possibility that the error is in those two blocks of code.
That said, have you tried renaming single-course.php to single-courses.php? After all that's the name you specified in the register_post_type call.
Hope that helps, good luck!

Answer 2

Problem solved when using the code generator I had failed to change the default 'slug'=> 'post_type' to my custom post type name, in my case "courses".

Answer 3

On a side note if you are using single-courses.php you shouldn't need to use
<?php
//Define your custom post type name in the arguments
$args = array('post_type' => 'courses');
//Define the loop based on arguments
$loop = new WP_Query( $args );
//Display the contents
while ( $loop->have_posts() ) : $loop->the_post();
?>
<h1 class="entry-title"><?php the_title(); ?></h1>
<div class="entry-content">
<?php the_content(); ?>
</div>
<?php endwhile;?>
</div>
If the theme template is named correctly you should just be able to use the standard wordpress loop and markup to display your content.
ie. no need to call another query.
<?php if ( have_posts() ) : while ( have_posts() ) : the_post(); ?>
//Content
<?php endwhile; endif; ?>
Unless of course you are modifying the query to get related content within the single.
In which case I'd suggest using get_posts(); with a simple foreach.
$args = array(
'post_type' = 'courses',
'posts_per_page' = -1,
);
<?php $related_posts = get_posts($args);
if ( $related_posts ) : ?>
<?php $temp_post = $post; //temporarily store the $post query for use after the related content
foreach ( $related_posts as $post ) : setup_postdata( $post ); ?>
<h3><?php the_title(); ?></h3>
<?php the_content(); ?>
<?php endforeach;
$post = $temp_post; //set the post back to the main query
endif; ?>
Wordpress codex for get_posts