WordPress: List authors with A-Z listing based on meta field

Question

I want to list all authors and order them from A-Z. The problem is, that I need to order them by a custom meta field and not their display name.

I have everything working if I order the authors by their display name. But if I try to order them by a custom field, the A-Z listing doesn't work anymore.

For context: I'm using the WooCommerce plugin WC Vendors and the authors have a shop name which I want to use as reference for the ordering.

Here's my current code:

$display_admins = false;
$order_by = 'display_name'; // 'nicename', 'email', 'url', 'registered', 'display_name', or 'post_count'
$role = 'vendor'; // 'subscriber', 'contributor', 'editor', 'author' - leave blank for 'all'
$avatar_size = 32;
$hide_empty = true; // hides authors with zero posts
$last = '';

if(!empty($display_admins)) {
    $blogusers = get_users('orderby='.$order_by.'&role='.$role);
} else {
    $admins = get_users('role=administrator');
    $exclude = array();
    foreach($admins as $ad) {
        $exclude[] = $ad->ID;
    }
    $exclude = implode(',', $exclude);
    $blogusers = get_users('exclude='.$exclude.'&orderby='.$order_by.'&role='.$role);
}
$authors = array();
foreach ($blogusers as $bloguser) {
    $user = get_userdata($bloguser->ID);
    if(!empty($hide_empty)) {
        $numposts = count_user_posts($user->ID, 'product');
        if($numposts < 1) continue;
    }
    $authors[] = (array) $user;
}

echo '<ul class="contributors">';
foreach($authors as $author) {

    //$display_name         = $author['data']->display_name;
    //$avatar           = get_avatar($author['ID'], $avatar_size);
    //$author_profile_url = get_author_posts_url($author['ID']);


    $vendor_shop_name           = get_user_meta( $author['ID'], 'pv_shop_name', true );
    $vendor_shop_desc           = get_user_meta( $author['ID'], 'pv_shop_description', true );

    $vendor_shop_keyvsiual      = get_user_meta( $author['ID'], 'vendor_keyvisual', true );
    $vendor_shop_icon_id        = get_user_meta( $author['ID'], '_wcv_store_icon_id', true );

    $vendor_shop_link           = WCV_Vendors::get_vendor_shop_page( $author['ID'] );

    $vendor_shop_address1       = get_user_meta( $author['ID'], '_wcv_store_address1', true );
    $vendor_shop_address2       = get_user_meta( $author['ID'], '_wcv_store_address2', true );
    $vendor_shop_city           = get_user_meta( $author['ID'], '_wcv_store_city', true );
    $vendor_shop_postcode       = get_user_meta( $author['ID'], '_wcv_store_postcode', true );
    $vendor_shop_country        = get_user_meta( $author['ID'], '_wcv_store_country', true );

    // This works fine
    $current            = strtolower($author['data']->display_name[0]);

    // This does not work
    //$vendor_shop_name_start   = substr($vendor_shop_name, 0, 1);
    //$current              = strtolower($vendor_shop_name_start);


    if ($last != $current) {
        echo '<a class"alphabit" name="' . strtoupper($current) . '">' . strtoupper($current) . '</a>';
            $last = $current;
    }
    echo '<li><a href="', $vendor_shop_link, '" class="contributor-link">', $vendor_shop_name, '</a></li>';
}
echo '</ul>';

As you can see, I already tried to change $current to the meta field pv_shop_name . And I reduced the string to the first letter. Which works fine but for some reason the ordering doesn't work anymore. And I saw a problem with a special character if the shop name start with an Ö for example.

I don't see the problem here.

Maybe it has something to do with the $order_by = 'display_name'; at the beginning? But how can I change that?

Answer 1

I figured it out.

I have to change the $oderby to:

$order_by = 'meta_value';

And I had to add meta_key=pv_shop_name to $blogusers:

$blogusers = get_users('meta_key=pv_shop_name&exclude='.$exclude.'&orderby='.$order_by.'&role='.$role);

Now it works fine.