Home Sidebar layout and read more link of home page posts.

[Fay Hui]

Hi Bill,

I have a couple questions on the home page:

1. On the Epic demo, there is a read more link for the home page posts. How do I get the “Read more” link there? My link is lagunabaptist.org. The home page post is at the bottom.

2. On the homepage, all the widgets on the Home Sidebar is aligned to the left instead of the 3 column organization in the demo… How do I try to look like that? I read another post in the forum about fixing the width of the home posts. Even after that, the widget just stack at the bottom of the left column.

Thank you for your help.

[Bill Robbins]

Fay,

It looks like I created a bug with my last update which is what’s causing the widgets to stack up. Here’s how to fix it.

1. Go to the Appearance section of your WordPress control panel and select edit.
2. From the list of files on your right, choose custom-js.php and look for this spot:

   
   		var $jcontainer = jQuery('.home-lower');
   		$jcontainer.imagesLoaded( function(){
   			$jcontainer.masonry({
   				columnWidth: 290,  
   				itemSelector: '.widget'
   			});
   		});	
   

3. Change the 290 above to 312
4. Save your changes.

That should let the widgets stack up like bricks instead of lining up on the left.

---

You can add a “Read More” link to the home posts widget (though there isn’t one in the demo). I’m not sure if you’re intending to have a link to the rest of your posts or to the rest of the content of the post you’re displaying. I’m including instructions to do both so you’re covered.

Link To All Posts

1. Go to the appearance section and select edit to open up the theme editor.
2. From the list of files on your right, choose widget-home-posts.php
3. Look for this spot:

   
   <?php endwhile; wp_reset_query(); ?>
   

4. Right below that (you’ll need to create a new line), add this:

5. Replace the http://yoursite.com/ with the URL you’d like to link to (your blog page) and replace the Link Name with the text you’d like to use as your link (what your visitors click).
6. Save your changes.

That will add a link to all your posts.

Link To The Full Content Of The Current Post

1. Go to the appearance section and select edit to open up the theme editor.
2. From the list of files on your right, choose widget-home-posts.php
3. Look for this spot:

   
   <?php the_excerpt(); ?>
   

4. Just below that (you’ll need to add a new line), add this:

5. Save your changes.

That will add a Read More link below the excerpt of the post.

---

If you run into any questions or trouble, let me know.

Thanks,
Bill

[Fay Hui]

Thansk Bill. Issue 1 is fixed.

I wanted to Read More on the content (the second part your provided). Thank you!
Anyway, I think the line you provided is missing “. After adding that, it works.

The “Read More” link is added after about 2 line of spacing from the end of the excerpt. Is there a way that it appear next to the last word of the excerpt? If this is very difficult, that is okay.

[Bill Robbins]

Fay,

There is a way to make the read more link part of excerpt instead of a line below. To do that, you’ll first want to remove the link we added above (sorry about that). Once you have that out, do this:

1. Go to the appearance section and select edit.
2. From the list of files on your right, choose functions.php.
3. Scroll down to the very bottom and delete this:

   
   	function organizedthemes_excerpt($more) {
   	 	global $post;
   		return '';
   	}
   	add_filter('excerpt_more', 'organizedthemes_excerpt');
   

4. And paste this in its place:

5. Save your changes.

That will add a read more link to the excerpt. One thing you’ll need to do is go to the theme options page and select the “Identity” tab. In the spot where it says “Include Built In SEO” select “no.”

You’ll now want to use a plugin to handle your page titles/descriptions. I use and recommend one called WordPress SEO by Yoast as it does a great job not only with the mechanics but also in providing prompts to better optimize your writing for search engines.

If you have any trouble, let me know,
Bill

[Unity Christian Church]

I want to do this, too, but I don’t know my blog address. (I will follow these instructions after I figure that out) I don’t want it to redirect to the front page because that gives a short list of posts. I need the url for the blog/news entries. Maybe I have to categorize them or something. Can you help me tell what my “blog” address is?

Additionally, I want the rss feed on the contact widget to be the feedburner one that I set up. I don’t know how to modify that.

Thanks, ann

[Bill Robbins]

Ann,

Normally the easiest way to add a blog to your site is to have a add a “category” to your navigation. All posts are assigned to a category–even if you didn’t specifically add one. In the navigation builder you can add a category to your menu just like a page. That will create a “page” for your blog.

If you have posts already across a number of categories, it’s still possible to add a page that has all of them together. Let me know and I can add it to your site for you.

Thanks,
Bill

[Fay Hui]

Hi Bill,

I cannot see the text you said to delete on step 3. Can you show one more time what text I need to delete?

Thanks,
Fay

[Bill Robbins]

Fay,

See if you can see it now. If you have trouble, let me know.

Enjoy your week,
Bill

[Loren Small]

Hi Bill,

We’re building a site ( http://www.thelincolnproject.com/AJHA/ ) and the masonry or “brick stacking” of the widgets I’ve included is also not working. The custom-js.php does seem to be correct at 312 as you mentioned in the thread above. Any thoughts?

Loren & Chris

[Bill Robbins]

Loren & Chris,

Thank you guys for your business first of all. The solution here eluded me for a bit until I noticed if I changed your body tag to the light style from the dark the widgets would align as they should. The dark style widgets have a border which adds 2 pixels to their width that the light style does not which is why the light style would line up while the dark style wouldn’t.

Here’s how to change that:

1. Go to the theme options page and select the styling tab.
2. Scroll down to the “Custom CSS” box and paste this:

   
   .widget { width: 268px; }	
   

3. Update your settings.

That should let widgets line up as expected. If you have any questions or trouble, let me know,
Bill

[Loren Small]

Like magic! Worked fine instantly upon pasting and updating.

Thank you, Bill — we appreciate your help!

Loren & Chris

[Bill Robbins]

That’s great news. If you run into any trouble, let me know.

[Christina K.]

Hi, how do I get the “read more” on all things, ie: staff pages, blogs, etc.? Plus, when I add the information above, my widgets get all crazy on the front page. http://erickson-foundation.org/MHE2013/

[Bill Robbins]

Christina,

Glad to help. Just to make sure we’re on the same page, your site appears to be running the Foundation theme and this is a post on the Epic one (the link above goes to a maintenance page). Just let me know and we’ll get you going.

Thanks,
Bill

[Christina K.]

Hi the website has been changed to epic, http://erickson-foundation.org/
Front posts just stop

[Bill Robbins]

Christina,

Thanks for letting me know…just wanted to make sure we were on the same page. You can add a read more link to the excerpts. Here’s how:

1. Go to the appearance section and select edit.
2. From the list of files on your right, choose functions.php.
3. Scroll down to the very bottom and delete this:

   
   	function organizedthemes_excerpt($more) {
   	 	global $post;
   		return '';
   	}
   	add_filter('excerpt_more', 'organizedthemes_excerpt');
   

4. And paste this in its place:

5. Save your changes.

That will add a read more link to the excerpt which is used with the home posts and staff member bios (on the staff list view).

One thing you’ll need to do is go to the theme options page and select the “Identity” tab. In the spot where it says “Include Built In SEO” select “no” if you’re using the built-in SEO. Then you’ll want to install a plugin like WordPress SEO by Yoast to handle your page titles.

If you have any trouble, let me know,
Bill

[Christina K.]

genius, you come through again like always. thank you!

[Christina K.]

sorry to bother again, but any suggestions on how to make it so the text logo title link is not changed when i use the default link custom css.

my settings: http://erickson-foundation.org/images/ex1.png
how it looks: http://erickson-foundation.org/images/ex2.png

[Bill Robbins]

No problem. You can use this snippet in your Custom CSS box on the styling tab of the theme options page:

#text-logo h1 a, 
#text-logo h1 a:visited, 
#text-logo p a, 
#text-logo p a:visited {
	color: #000000;
}

That should keep your text logo black while you change your other link colors.

If you want to change the hover color of the text logo you can use this:

#text-logo h1 a:hover, 
#text-logo p a:hover {
	color: #000000;
}

Let me know if you have any trouble.

[Christina K.]

thanks for the fix. is there a reason though why i did place the text as black but it changes due to the default link text field

[Bill Robbins]

I’m not certain, I’ll have to look into it. I’m planning on adding in the theme customizer like we just did for Foxy so that I’ll add that to the list.

[Author]

Posts