Referencing Playa Field inside a Matrix Field from another Channel

Question

I am trying to reference an image field from blog posts (blog channel) to display on a staff profile page (pages channel).

On the blog post there is a matrix field "blog_smile":

• Column 1: blog_smile_ortho (playa field - used to assign the staff member)
• Column 2: blog_smile_image (assets field - to assign image)

How could I be on the profile page and say:

1. Go look at the blog channel,
2. Look in the matrix field "blog smile" and find "blog_smile_ortho" entries that are the same entry id as the profile page you're on
3. Then get the "blog_smile_image" file from that same matrix field
4. And repeat this process up to 6 times working back from todays date.

Thanks for any advice you can give.

Answer 1

This is possible, but limiting the output to just the last 6 photos is going to require some PHP in your template. So first go into your template’s preferences and enable PHP on Output.

Here’s the template code:

{exp:channel:entries channel="pages" ... }

    {!-- start the counter --}
    <?php $count = 0; ?>

    {!-- find the blog entries relating to this profile page --}
    {exp:playa:parents channel="blog"
                       field="blog_smile"
                       col="blog_smile_ortho"
                       orderby="date" sort="desc"
                       var_prefix="blogpost"}

        {!-- find the Matrix rows relating to this profile page --}
        {blogpost:blog_smile search:blog_smile_ortho="[{entry_id}]"}

            {!-- loop through the Assets images --}
            {blogpost:blog_smile_image}

                {!-- increase the counter --}
                <?php $count++ ?>

                {!-- only show this image if it’s within the first 6 --}
                <?php if ($count <= 6): ?>
                    <img src="{blogpost:url}" width="{blogpost:width}" height="{blogpost:height}">
                <?php endif ?>

            {/blogpost:blog_smile_image}

        {/blogpost:blog_smile}

    {/exp:playa:parents}

{/exp:channel:entries}

Hope that helps!