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Custom Excerpt “more” Link in BranfordMagazine

Michael Oeser — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 21:49:18 +0000

Recently I have written about individual excerpt lenghts in BranfordMagazine. Today I will show you how to customize the excert “more” textstring and make it a real clickable link for a better user experience.

Better user experience with clickable excerpt “more”

By default the excerpt of WordPress displays an un-clickable [...] at the end of the default 55 words. Well of course this makes the user somehow aware of the fact that there is more to read but he cannot click on the [...] string which causes irritations with less experienced users. Wouldn´t it be great if WordPress would add a real link at the end of an excerpt? Sure it would and here is how to do it.

The Function

Open your tools/various-functions.php file inside the branfordmagazine-pro themefolder and edit this (or similar) codesnippet:

// modify the excerpt "more" appearance an make it clickable
function new_excerpt_more($more) {
return ‘
().‘">’.__(‘[continue reading...]‘,‘branfordmagazine’).‘’;
}
add_filter(‘excerpt_more’, ‘new_excerpt_more’);
?>

In this example a link [continue reading...] will appear at the end of the excerpt after a linebreak. It is also prepared for localization. If you want something different just change the “[continue reading...]” string to e.g. “read on” or whatever you like. If you want the link to appear right behind the last word of the excerpt remove the < br / > tag.

Here is an example of three (clickable) dots right after the last word:

// modify the excerpt "more" appearance an make it clickable
function new_excerpt_more($more) {
return ‘().‘">…’;
}
add_filter(‘excerpt_more’, ‘new_excerpt_more’);
?>

A little styling

As you can see there is a CSS class called .excerpt_more. You can now style this class to meet your requirements. it can be found in the style.css file.

/* "more" Links in the excerpts */
.excerpt_more a {
color:#840000!important;
}

.excerpt_more a:hover {
text-decoration:none;
}

Works everywhere

This little trick is not just for BranfordMagazine. You can use it with any theme as long as you run WordPress 2.9 or higher.

Using optional excerpts for more content control

Michael Oeser — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 22:41:32 +0000

In another article I already wrote about using individual excerpt lengths in BranfordMagazine. This brief tutorial shows you how to use individual excerpts for every post in order to get more control over your content. I use this in the leadarticle of my BranfordMagazine demosite.

When you write a post you will find an “excerpt” panel (German: “Auszug”) normally right below the text editor panel. You just have to type in whatever text you like and the_excerpt() template tag will use it for the excerpt automatically. The advantage here is that you can control the legth of the text and also use html formating such as bold text.

That´s it. Pretty easy. Isn´t it.

Individual Excerpt lengths in BranfordMagazine

Michael Oeser — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 21:53:20 +0000

BranfordMagazine and also my other themes use the excerpt template tag for auto-shortening texts on the homepage and in other areas. This is nothing spectacular since many themes do it like that. But BranfordMagazine uses the power of WordPress 2.9x to provide a function for individual excerpt lengths. Be aware that this doesn´t work with WP versions prior to 2.9. By default this is used for shorter excerpts in the featured articles section. Of course you can use this technique with any of my premium WordPress themes.

How to use individual excerpt lengths

Open your /tools/various-functions.php file in the theme directory and look up the code below. You will see this (or a similar) function:

//modify the excerpt lenght in the "featured articles" section on the homepage
add_filter(‘excerpt_length’, ‘my_excerpt_length’);
function my_excerpt_length($length) {
if(in_category(4)) { // put here the ID (4 by default) of the category used for the "featured" articles
return 25; // put the number of words (default 25)
} else {
return 55; // show 55 words for any other excerpt (or change this number also)
}
}
?>

I think it´s more or less self explaining. By default (and based on my demo site) it means that the excerpt of category 4 (featured articles) is limited to 25 words. The excerpt of any other category is limited to 55 words which is the WordPress default. Now you can easily change the lenght of your excerpts just by changing the numbers 25 and/or 55 to whatever you like.

Extending the function

You can also extend this function to archieve other categories to display different excerpt lengths. Try something like this:

//modify the excerpt lenght in the "featured articles" section on the homepage
add_filter(‘excerpt_length’, ‘my_excerpt_length’);
function my_excerpt_length($length) {
if(in_category(4)) { // put here the ID (4 by default) of the category used for the "featured" articles
return 25; // put the number of words (default 25)
}
elseif(in_category(1)) { // put here the ID of the category
return 75; // put the number of words (default 25)
}
else {
return 55; // show 55 words for any other excerpt (or change this number also)
}
}
?>

It´s up to you now. Play around with it.