wordpress advanced custom fields order posts by date-picker - wordpress

Question

For those familiar with the ACF plugin...
I have some events posts that are currently displaying in post order (see code below). I would like them to display in the order specified by the date-picker.
Can anyone tell me what to amend in the following - I have tried the documentation on the site, but my PHP is basic.
It says I need to add
'orderby' => 'meta_value_num',
But no joy.
<?php function le_whatson_aside() {
//THis loop is for the CPT
$args = array(
'post_type' => 'events', // enter your custom post type
'orderby' => 'menu_order',
'order' => 'ASC',
'posts_per_page'=> '10', // overrides posts per page in theme settings
'tax_query' => array(
array(
'taxonomy' => 'audience', //name of custom taxonomy
'field' => 'slug',
'terms' => 'everyone' //name of category
)
)
);
$loop = new WP_Query( $args );
if( $loop->have_posts() ):
?>
<div>
<h2>What's On</h2>
</div>
<div class="whatson entry-content">
<?php
while( $loop->have_posts() ): $loop->the_post(); global $post;
?>
<p class="whatson-date"><?php echo date("dS F Y",strtotime(get_field('date')));?></p>
<h4 class="whatson-title"><?php echo get_the_title(); ?></h4>
<?php
endwhile;
?>
</div>
<?php
endif; }
Thanks all.

Answer 1

Try
orderby=date or `post_date`
If not the easiest way is to save your custom field 'startdate' as a unix timestamp. To do this, add the following to your theme's functions.php
// CREATE UNIX TIME STAMP FROM DATE PICKER
function custom_unixtimesamp ( $post_id ) {
if ( get_post_type( $post_id ) == 'events' ) {
$startdate = get_post_meta($post_id, 'startdate', true);
if($startdate) {
$dateparts = explode('/', $startdate);
$newdate1 = strtotime(date('d.m.Y H:i:s', strtotime($dateparts[1].'/'.$dateparts[0].'/'.$dateparts[2])));
update_post_meta($post_id, 'unixstartdate', $newdate1 );
}
}
}
add_action( 'save_post', 'custom_unixtimesamp', 100, 2);
The do:
$today = time();
$args = array(
'post_type' => 'events',
'posts_per_page' => 5,
'meta_query' => array(
array(
'key' => 'unixstartdate',
'compare' => '>=',
'value' => $today,
)
),
'meta_key' => 'startdate',
'orderby' => 'meta_value',
'order' => 'ASC',
);
$query = new WP_Query( $args );
$events = $query->posts;
Got it from here

Answer 2

I spent hours looking for this and I can confirm it works. See my code below.
If you're trying for a loop on a page with other loops, with a bunch of template parts in there, and you would also like to sort by a category, it goes :
$today = time();
$the_query = new WP_Query( array(
'post_type' => 'events',
'posts_per_page' => 3,
'meta_query' => array(
array(
'key' => 'start',
'value' => $today,
'compare' => '>=',
)
),
'tax_query' => array(
array (
'taxonomy' => 'the_taxonomy',
'field' => 'slug',
'terms' => 'the-name'
)
),
'meta_key' => 'start',
'orderby' => 'meta_value',
'order' => 'ASC',
) );
while ( $the_query->have_posts() ) :
$the_query->the_post();
get_template_part( 'content-events' );
endwhile;
wp_reset_postdata();
Of course, you have to include Unix the function beforehand.
function custom_unixtimesamp ( $post_id ) {
if ( get_post_type( $post_id ) == 'events' ) {
$startdate = get_post_meta($post_id, 'start', true);
if($startdate) {
$dateparts = explode('_', $startdate);
$newdate1 = strtotime(date('d.m.Y H:i:s', strtotime($dateparts[1].'/'.$dateparts[0].'/'.$dateparts[2])));
update_post_meta($post_id, 'unixstartdate', $newdate1 );
}
}
}
add_action( 'save_post', 'custom_unixtimesamp', 100, 2);

Answer 3

I would approach it like this. Create a "named" meta query and then order by that query. The meta query uses "EXITS" to filter out posts that don't have a date set. This works with the ACF date picker when the dates are saved to the database using the default format d/m/Y. This approach also works with the datetime picker.
$query = new WP_Query([
"meta_query" => [
"custom_date" => [
"key" => "date",
"compare" => "EXISTS",
"type" => "DATETIME",
]
],
"orderby" => [
"custom_date" => "ASC",
],
]);
Be sure to update the value for key to whatever your ACF field name is.