Doing more with <!--more-->

CMS & WordPress
1

Here’s what I want to do with the <!–more–> tag in Wordpress.

I want to customise what’s written separately for every post. Easy: I just write the custom text after ‘more’ within the tag.

AND, I also want some default text afterwards. Which is styled differently from the custom text.

So that if I use the tag <!–more What’s going to happen next?–> it will display as What’s going to happen next? Read more.

I know that I can use .more-text to style the <!–more–> tag, but how do I add default text which is styled differently to the custom text?

2

Add this to your functions.php file

// customize more-link
add_filter( 'the_content_more_link', 'handle_more_link', 10, 2 );
function handle_more_link( $link, $link_text ) {
     return str_replace( $link_text, 'Read more', $link);
}

Replace Read more with the text you want to show.

These last two are when using the_excerpt(); instead of the_content(); in the loop.

// custom more link for categories
function new_excerpt_more($more) {
       global $post;
	return '<a class="more-link" href="'. get_permalink($post->ID) . '">Read more</a>';
}
add_filter('excerpt_more', 'new_excerpt_more');

and set a custom length

// custom exerpt length
function new_excerpt_length($length) {
	return 20;
}
add_filter('excerpt_length', 'new_excerpt_length');

Change the number 20 to the number of words you want displayed.

3

Thanks. I tried the first one but what it does is to override the custom text that’s been added to the <!–more–> tag.

The second one looks good but can custom text be added to it? If so, how would you go about it?

4

Just change the Read more text to whatever text you want

return '<a class="more-link" href="'. get_permalink($post->ID) . '">Read more</a>';

Yes, the first one is meant to change the text for the <!–more–>.
It’s done with a function so you do not have to remember to add text to the post itself.