I have about 20 apps on my site, and was going to set up a forum for each one. That would be a bit of an admin nightmare! So the next theory is to create one forum, but have a list of "product tags", (ie if someone wanted to post about the product directory, they could enter "product_directory" as a tag. I'm assuming the search option can search tags. As I type this, I suddenly thought a "tag cloud" type widget might be easier)

This means I need to add a "sticky" to one forum within one board so I can list all the possible key tags to use. This post should remain in situ even when extra posts create pagination. (In that way, a USER can also type in that tag and find posts related to that app, rather than searching for posts containing that keyword in their title)

I came across this code, but the post was seven years old and things might have moved on since then:

function custom_order_sticky_topics( $topics ) {

    $rules = array();

    //$rules[ ForumID ] = array( First TopicID, Second TopicID );
    $rules[4] = array(19, 6);
    $rules[7] = array(26, 63, 68);

    if( function_exists('WPF') && isset(WPF()->current_object['template']) ){
        if( WPF()->current_object['template'] == 'forum' || WPF()->current_object['template'] == 'topic' ){
            $tmp = array(); $ordered = array();
            if( empty($topics) || !isset($topics[0]['forumid']) || isset($topics[0]['permissions']) ){ return $topics; } else {  $forumid = $topics[0]['forumid']; }
            if( !empty( $rules ) && isset( $rules[$forumid] ) ){
                foreach( $topics as $key => $topic ){ if( isset($topic['topicid'])) { $tmp[$topic['topicid']] = $topic; } }
                if( !empty($tmp) ){ foreach( $rules[$forumid] as $topicid ){ if( isset($tmp[$topicid]) ) { $ordered[] = $tmp[$topicid]; unset($tmp[$topicid]); } } }
                $topics = array_merge($ordered, $tmp);
                $topics = array_values($topics);
            }
        }
    }
    return $topics;
}
add_filter( 'wpforo_get_topics', 'custom_order_sticky_topics', 20);

The reply suggested posting it within the function.php. However, on another plugin (sets default image on post), the vendor suggested that user's could also use similar "add_filter" code to a php code file, and place that file within the plugin folder, (effectively making it "private", and not affected by product updates) ** I know little about WP, but that would seem to suggest ALL plugins get loaded at runtime whether needed or not - which is probably why they advise keeping plugins to a min. In my own scripting, I use a "require" as and when a particular bit of extra code is needed.

In a nutshell, is the above code still the best method for sticky posts?