wpml

Cannot remove the ‘sticky’ option from a post

 in WordPress  tagged post / sticky / wordpress / wpml by

Recently, we were trying to remove the sticky flag from a post on a self-hosted installation. We were removing the sticky option both from the posts menu and the post editor and after a page refresh, it would reappear as active.

After some troubleshooting, it appeared that the problem was with the WPML plugin. After we disabled that one, we could change the option for the sticky status. Unfortunately, when we activated the plugin again, the option returned to its previous state.

The “fix” that worked was the following:

  1. We visited the WPML plugin settings page: https://example.com/wp-admin/admin.php?page=sitepress-multilingual-cms%2Fmenu%2Ftranslation-options.php
  2. Then in the category Posts and pages synchronization, we removed the tick from the option Synchronize sticky flag and the clicked the Save button.
  1. Following that, we edited our post again and removed the sticky option.
  2. Afterwards, we checked the homepage that the post had been removed and then we went back to the settings page of WPML https://example.com/wp-admin/admin.php?page=sitepress-multilingual-cms%2Fmenu%2Ftranslation-options.php
  3. From there, we enabled again the Synchronize sticky flag option, pressed the Save button to revert the change to the settings hoping the problem will be fixed eventually.

Technical Info

  • WPML Multilingual CMS version 4.2.6
  • WordPress version 5.8.1

WPML: How to add the Languages’s list in a WordPress menu

 in WordPress  tagged language / language selector / menu / multilingual / wordpress / wpml by

The code in this article can be used to create a WPML language switcher that will be attached at the bottom of a specific WordPress menu. Each Language will be a sub-menu item of a new menu item named Languages.

Menu Languages Options

You should add this code to your theme’s functions.php file. It is highly recommended to add this change to the functions.php of child theme.

Choosing which languages to show

By default, the following code will be showing ALL available languages, including the currently active one. We did that as we only have two languages in our website and it would weird to: (a) have only one sub-menu item in the Languages menu item or (b) remove the Languages menu item and place the inactive language item directly on the menu.

To show only the inactive languages, change the line that contains $showActive = true; to $showActive = false;.

Choosing which menu to show the languages on

To choose the menu on which you want the languages to appear in, you need to set the value of $themeLocation = 'main'; to the theme location that the menu has in your current theme.

For the default WordPress themes (Twenty Sixteen, Twenty Fifteen, etc.) setting the value to primary as follows $themeLocation = 'primary'; will add the languages to the main menu.

For the customizr theme (this also works for the pro version),  setting the value to main as follows $themeLocation = 'main'; will add the languages to the main menu.

For other themes, you need to find the name of the menu you want to append the languages to. To do so change the line $showMenuName = false; to $showMenuName = true;. This will print at the beginning of your menu the location of the menu inside the theme using a <pre> tag. Copy that value to the $themeLocation variable, change the $showMenuName back to $showMenuName = false; and you are done.

Menu Location

/* Add languages menu to main menu */
add_filter('wp_nav_menu_items', 'new_nav_menu_items', 10, 2);
function new_nav_menu_items($items, $args) {
    
    $showActive = true;
    $themeLocation = 'main';
    $showMenuName = false;

    if ($showMenuName) {
        echo "<pre>"; print_r(get_object_vars($args)['theme_location']); echo "</pre>";
    }

    // get languages
    $languages = apply_filters( 'wpml_active_languages', NULL, 'skip_missing=0' );

    if ( $languages && $args->theme_location == $themeLocation) {

        if(!empty($languages)){

            $items = $items . '<br/><li class="menu-item">Languages';
            $items = $items . '<ul class="dropdown-menu">';
            foreach($languages as $l){

                if(!$l['active'] || $showActive){
                    $items = $items . '<li class="menu-item"><a href="' . $l['url'] . '"><img src="' . $l['country_flag_url'] . '" height="12" alt="' . $l['language_code'] . '" width="18" /> ' . $l['native_name'] . '</a></li>';
                }
            }
            $items = $items . '</li></ul>';
        }
    }

    return $items;
}

The above code was generated using the documentation examples of WPML.