EE: Show previous 3 blog entries prior to the current viewed entry

Question

I have been stuck on this one for a few days now:

Page Content:

Main blog post (current entry) + a sidebar displaying the previous 3 blog entries

Sidebar Code:

{exp:channel:entries channel="blog" status="open" limit="3" orderby="date" sort="desc" dynamic="off" url_title="not {last_segment}"}
                <!-- NEWS BOX # -->
                <div class="col-sm-4 text-center">

                    <img src="{blog_image}" class="project-img" />
                    <h4><strong><a href="{url_title_path='blog'}">{blog_title}</a></strong></h4>
                    {blog_description}

                </div>
                <!-- NEWS BOX # -->
 {/exp:channel:entries}

Goal:

Regardless of the current blog being viewed, the sidebar should always display 3 previous entries posted prior to the 'viewed' blog entry date.

As an example:

• Blog 1 - Entry Date: 2017-03-06
• Blog 2 - Entry Date: 2017-03-05
• Blog 3 - Entry Date: 2017-03-04
• Blog 4 - Entry Date: 2017-03-03
• Blog 5 - Entry Date: 2017-03-02
• Blog 6 - Entry Date: 2017-03-01

If Blog 2 is the current entry in view, the sidebar would show Blog 3, Blog 4 and Blog 5

If Blog 3 is the current entry in view, the sidebar would show Blog 4, Blog 5 and Blog 6

If Blog 5 is the current entry in view, the sidebar would show Blog 6

Any help offered is appreciated.

Answer 1

my guess would be you'll need an embed. the in the main template (within the channel:entries tag) call that embed something like this:

{exp:channel:entries}
{embed="_inc/_previous_three_posts" the_start_date="{entry_date}" the_entry_id="{entry_id}"}
{/exp:channel:entries}

Your embed would look something like this:

{exp:channel:entries start_on="{embed:the_start_date}" limit="3" entry_id="not {embed:the_entry_id}" dynamic="no"}
{title}
{/exp:channel:entries}