Get query result before posts are displayed?

You can use the the_posts filter to loop through the results before they get returned. Proof of concept: function test_the_posts($a) { var_dump($a); die; } add_action(‘the_posts’,’test_the_posts’); I am fairly certain (though I haven’t tested it) that you could pretty easily break pagination and probably other things by fiddling with that, so be careful.

Placing the content of one post in two side by side columns, newspaper style

Turns out there are specific CSS properties for columns: Here’s what worked for my case: .featured { -moz-column-count: 3; -moz-column-width:245px; -moz-column-gap: 40px; -webkit-column-count: 3; -webkit-column-gap : 40px; -webkit-column-width:245px; -moz-column-rule-color: #ccc; -moz-column-rule-style: solid; -moz-column-rule-width: 1px; -webkit-column-rule-color: #ccc; -webkit-column-rule-style: solid ; -webkit-column-rule-width: 1px; } And two refs for several other ways to go about it. ADVANCED 2 … Read more

Is there a way to target only images within the loop?

That depends. There is the_post_thumbnail which will echo the “featured” image and get_children can grab all attachments. Certain kinds of images aren’t attached though, so you can’t easily get those. Reference http://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/the_post_thumbnail http://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/get_children

The Loop isn’t working

The problem is not that the loop is not working. The problem is your code is not executing the loop the way you want it to. PHP does not do what you mean. It does exactly what you tell it to do. Like most computer languages, it is just an extremely fast and incredibly dumb … Read more