Trying to display a views list with order based upon current node being viewed

Question

I have a view block which shows lists of content type "news" which displays in a sidebar showing only the node title for users to peruse.

There are about 150 such "news" nodes and so I use pagitation.

These "news" nodes are completely linear. You always want to read them in order. So if you read node/20, you must read node/21 next, then node/22 etc.

I would like the view block in the sidebar to display the titles of 2 nodes BEFORE and AFTER the current node. So, if I went to node/20, I would like the view block to display:

• Title of node/18
• Title of node/19
• Title of node/20 (current node being viewed)
• Title of node/21
• Title of node/22

I was hoping for some pointers as to how I might achieve this. All things that I've tried thus far have proved futile.

Thanks.

Answer 1

In your View, under Block Display, go to:

Advanced-> Contextual filters (Add)->Content: NID

In the "When the filter value is NOT available" option select:

Provide default value-> PHP Code

and add the following code:

if (arg(0) == 'node' && is_numeric(arg(1))) {
  $nodeid = arg(1);
  $result = strval($nodeid-2) . "+" . strval($nodeid-1) . "+" . strval($nodeid) . "+" . strval($nodeid+1) . "+" . strval($nodeid+2);
  return $result;
}

Last but not least, under "More", select the option: "Allow multiple values"

Answer 2

In relation to your comment:

Limit the output of this view to a particular content type

$nid = $handler->argument;  // the node id from url
$nodes = array();           // an array for node id's
$type = "news";             // content type (mashine name)

// get two previous node id's and the present one
$result = db_query("SELECT nid FROM {node} 
                    WHERE nid <= :nid 
                    AND status = :status 
                    AND type = :type 
                    ORDER BY nid DESC 
                    Limit 3", 
                    array(  ":nid" => $nid, 
                            ":status" => 1, 
                            ":type" => $type
                            )
                    );
foreach ($result as $row){
    $nodes[] = $row->nid;
}

// get next two node id's
$result = db_query("SELECT nid FROM {node} 
                    WHERE nid > :nid 
                    AND status = :status  
                    AND type = :type 
                    ORDER BY nid ASC 
                    Limit 2", 
                    array(  ":nid" => $nid, 
                            ":status" => 1, 
                            ":type" => $type
                            )
                    );
foreach ($result as $row){
    $nodes[] = $row->nid;
}

// compose and return the filter argument
$handler->argument = implode('+',$nodes);
return $argument;

"Allow multiple values" has to be selected

This solution should suit your needs if your are going to show this block only on particular content type ("news" in this case).