Intanto Grazie per l'intervento, avevo già visto quanto da te linkato, e sono veramente vicino alla soluzione infatti questa è la query a cui sono arrivato

SELECT wp_posts.* FROM wp_posts INNER JOIN wp_term_relationships ON (wp_posts.ID = wp_term_relationships.object_id) LEFT JOIN wp_postmeta ON ( wp_posts.ID = wp_postmeta.post_id ) LEFT JOIN wp_postmeta AS mt1 ON (wp_posts.ID = mt1.post_id AND mt1.meta_key = 'dir_featured' ) WHERE 1=1 AND ( wp_term_relationships.term_taxonomy_id IN (2159) ) AND ( ( wp_postmeta.meta_key = 'dir_featured' AND CAST(wp_postmeta.meta_value AS CHAR) = 'yes' ) OR mt1.post_id IS NULL ) AND wp_posts.post_type = 'ait-dir-item' AND ((wp_posts.post_status = 'publish')) GROUP BY wp_posts.ID ORDER BY wp_postmeta.meta_value DESC, wp_posts.post_date DESC

mentre devo arrivare a questa

SELECT ** IF(wp_postmeta.meta_value = 'yes',post_date,'zz') as mv,** wp_posts.* FROM wp_posts INNER JOIN wp_term_relationships ON (wp_posts.ID = wp_term_relationships.object_id) LEFT JOIN wp_postmeta ON ( wp_posts.ID = wp_postmeta.post_id ) LEFT JOIN wp_postmeta AS mt1 ON (wp_posts.ID = mt1.post_id AND mt1.meta_key = 'dir_featured' ) WHERE ( wp_term_relationships.term_taxonomy_id IN (".$queried_object ->term_id.") ) AND ( ( wp_postmeta.meta_key = 'dir_featured' AND CAST(wp_postmeta.meta_value AS CHAR) = 'yes' ) OR mt1.post_id IS NULL ) AND wp_posts.post_type = 'ait-dir-item' AND wp_posts.post_status = 'publish' GROUP BY wp_posts.ID ORDER BY **mv ASC,** wp_posts.post_date DESC

in grassetto ho messo cosa cambia fra le 2.

avevo percorso la strada di utilizzare direttamente la query sul codice, ma mi serve il risultato come lo restituisce ik WP_Query visto il codice già esistente, andarlo a stravolgere non sarebbe proprio il caso.

quì i parametri utilizzati fino ad ora

$params = array( 'post_type' => 'ait-dir-item', 'nopaging' => true, 'meta_query' => array( 'relation' => 'OR', array( 'key' => 'dir_featured', 'value' => 'yes', 'compare' => '=' ), array( 'key' => 'dir_featured', 'value' => '', 'compare' => 'NOT EXISTS' ) ) , 'orderby' => array( 'dir_featured' => 'DESC','post_date' => 'DESC' ), 'post_status' => 'publish', 'tag__in' => $queried_object ->term_id );

Grazie ancora attendo info