Playing with the WordPress 'More' Tag

After reading John P.'s note on "Homepage Excerpts Increase Pageviews" in his "45 Ways to Power Up Your Blog" article and after soliciting the views of my own readers with "10 Ways To Power Up My Blog", I decided to play with the WordPress "<!–more–>" tag and see what the excerpts look like. I was in for a rude awakening, but not until after I'd messed with it for a short time. More on that in a minute.

Checking The References

The first thing I did was insert the tag in a post and look at the result. Ewww! I didn't like it at all. The code in my theme adds a space and the " »" character onto the end of it. I didn't want to edit the theme because I don't know how many files I'd have to edit and upload. Not only that, I didn't like the fact that I was stuck with only ONE way of doing it. So I "Googled" for more information.

I read the information presented at the WordPress Codex page, "Customizing the Read More", and still didn't find what I wanted. I then stumbled across the post, "But wait, there’s more!" at the WordPress.com blog.

That was the ticket! According to that post, WordPress should have had this feature available since version 2.1 (and I'm on 2.5). It turns out, if you put in the tag like "<–more Continue reading –>", it displays only "Continue reading". You have to be careful to surround the optional text with one space on each side, but the not the preceding text.

It Breaks A Plugin

I'm using the DualFeeds plugin to provide both a full and a partial feed at the same time. It doesn't recognize the customized tag.

I checked the Full Text Feed plugin and it appears to have a regular expression that can handle it. It looks like Stephen needs to fix his though. Until then, I'm out of luck.

I could hack the DualFeeds plugin to work the way I want it to, but I'd much prefer to wait until Stephen fixes it himself.

But Will I Use It?

I'm strongly considering it. I don't like the slow-loading time of 5 long posts on the front page. I could easily fit 10 posts and still have it shorter by using well-crafted excerpts.

Right now, however, all I can do is sit back and wait.

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April 11th, 2008 By RT Cunningham | Untwisted Vortex | Philippines | Categories: WordPress | Tags: plugins, template tags | Full Article Feed | Summary Article Feed | Comments Feed | Full Articles by Email | Respond | Trackback URL

2. Matt on 2008-04-11 at 7:45 am (Reply)

   The More feature is great. We put up 3-5 articles a day on our main site, so to keep ppl seeing all the new articles (many of which are looong) we've used the More feature and been pleased.

   If you get it going later you should check out this plugin, "Less":
   http://www.thunderguy.com/semicolon/wordpress/less-wordpress-plugin/

   It makes the page go to the top of the article instead of jumping to the same spot as the "more" insert.

   Matt's last blog post..NBC Hits Us With Laughs Tonight: 30 Rock & The Office Return

3. Ray from lostaddress on 2008-04-11 at 6:23 pm (Reply)

   I use the "more" tag, though mine is via a plugin. I prefer to just have 3 paragraphs on the front page, partly for neatness but partly because when I read I like to get an idea of a post before I decide to read on. It cuts down on scrolling.

   Ray's last blog post..Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2007

4. RT Cunningham | Untwisted Vortex | Philippines on 2008-04-11 at 6:51 pm (Reply)

   Yep. I'm just holding and waiting to make the change.

5. Troy on 2008-04-12 at 5:27 am (Reply)

   I used to use b2evolutions "more" functionality on almost all my posts, because I thought it might lure people a little deeper into my blog. Lately, though, I haven't really bothered with it.

   I wonder what effect it might have on non blog-savvy readers. I am trying to target a group of people for my blog who may be newbies, not familiar with the whole concept of weblogs, RSS, etc… On the one hand, having a MORE link is very similar to what you'd see on many news pages, and makes it less confusing as to why all the posts are on one page. On the other, people don't like having to click more than they have to.

   Any suggestions for me?

   2. RT Cunningham | Untwisted Vortex | Philippines on 2008-04-12 at 1:49 pm (Reply)

      I've been considering this. It depends on what kind of traffic you're looking for. If you're targeting newbies, using the more tag with a lot of articles on the front page would probably easier to comprehend. Let's face it, how many people read the whole article if they're not interested by the first paragraph?

      2. Troy on 2008-04-12 at 10:04 pm (Reply)

         That's exactly what I was thinking. Also, as you said, it would probably make loading easier for people with slow connections.

6. Stephen from Custom WordPress Plugins on 2008-05-05 at 12:37 pm (Reply)

   Hi RT,

   I'm playing catch up with my reading (after our move to Australia), so I've only just noticed this. It's obviously something I need to fix.

   I haven't looked at it yet, but it should like it should be pretty simple to fix. I'll try to have a look at it in the next week or so.

   Stephen’s last blog post… Back In The Seat

   2. Stephen Cronin on 2008-06-06 at 3:19 pm (Reply)

      Umm, well a month has passed and I haven't done this yet. I had to shift priorities elsewhere. I haven't forgotten this though.

      Stephen Cronin’s last blog post… BullGuard - What A Load Of Bull!