Use Cases

Real-world ways to use Native Content Relationships: products and accessories, courses and lessons, related content, user favorites, and more.

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Products and accessories

Link WooCommerce (or custom) products to accessories, upsells, or bundles.

In code:

// Product 100 “recommended with” products 101, 102
ncr_add_relation( 100, 'post', 101, 'post', 'related_to' );
ncr_add_relation( 100, 'post', 102, 'post', 'related_to' );

In template or shortcode:

$related = ncr_get_related( get_the_ID(), 'post', 'related_to', [ 'limit' => 6 ] );
foreach ( $related as $post_id ) {
	// Output product card
}

Shortcode (any post type):

[naticore_related_posts type="related_to" limit="6" layout="grid" title="You might also like" show_thumbnail="1"]

Optional: use the WooCommerce integration to sync or mirror product relationships.

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Courses and lessons

Model a course as a parent post and lessons as children with parent_of / child relationship.

Register a type (once, e.g. in a mu-plugin or theme):

ncr_register_relation_type( [
	'slug'         => 'lesson_of',
	'label'        => 'Lesson Of',
	'from_type'    => 'post',
	'to_type'      => 'post',
	'bidirectional' => false,
] );

Link course → lessons:

$course_id = 200;
$lesson_ids = [ 201, 202, 203 ];
foreach ( $lesson_ids as $lid ) {
	ncr_add_relation( $course_id, 'post', $lid, 'post', 'lesson_of' );
}

Query lessons for a course (WP_Query):

$q = new WP_Query( [
	'post_type'        => 'lesson',
	'content_relation' => [
		'post_id' => $course_id,
		'type'    => 'lesson_of',
		'direction' => 'to', // lessons that are “lesson_of” this course
	],
] );

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Related articles and content

Link posts with related_to (bidirectional) for “Related posts” sections.

PHP:

$related = ncr_get_related( get_the_ID(), 'post', 'related_to', [ 'limit' => 5, 'orderby' => 'created', 'order' => 'DESC' ] );

Shortcode (in post content or block):

[naticore_related_posts type="related_to" limit="5" order="date" title="Related articles" show_thumbnail="1" excerpt_length="20"]

Gutenberg: Use the Related Content block and choose the “Related To” relationship type.

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User favorites and bookmarks

Let users mark posts as favorites or bookmarks. Store as user → post relationships.

Built-in types: favorite_posts (user → post), bookmarked_by (same, different label). Use the User relationship UI in the post editor or user profile to link users to posts.

Display “Posts this user favorited” (author context):

$user_id = get_the_author_meta( 'ID' );
$favorites = ncr_get_related( $user_id, 'user', 'favorite_posts', [ 'limit' => 10 ] );

Shortcode for “Related users” (e.g. “Who bookmarked this”):

[naticore_related_users type="bookmarked_by" limit="10" title="Saved by" layout="grid"]

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Categories and curated collections (post ↔ term)

Link posts to taxonomy terms for featured categories or curated collections beyond default taxonomies.

Built-in type: categorized_as (post → term).

ncr_add_relation( $post_id, 'post', $term_id, 'term', 'categorized_as' );
$terms = ncr_get_related( $post_id, 'post', 'categorized_as', [ 'limit' => 5 ] );

Shortcode:

[naticore_related_terms type="categorized_as" limit="5" title="In these collections" layout="grid"]

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Multilingual (WPML / Polylang)

Relationship data can be mirrored across translations so that when you relate a post in one language, the linked translation is related too. See Multilingual integration for setup and behavior.

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Headless and REST

For headless WordPress, use the REST API to create/read/delete relations and to embed relations in core resources:

• REST API — GET/POST/DELETE under /wp-json/naticore/v1/
• Embed: GET /wp-json/wp/v2/posts/<id>?naticore_relations=1 to get a naticore_relations array in the response

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Next steps

• Quick Start — First relationship in the UI
• Relationships — Create and query from code
• PHP API — Full function reference
• Shortcodes — All shortcode attributes