Need more customization of more-link markup

[Laurabelle]

Hi,

My issue is sort of similar to the problem described in #178 in that I'm concerned with validating markup, but my situation is slightly different. I'm not interested in breaking a post in the middle of a block or list and having WordPress figure out how to fix my markup. On the contrary, I want complete control over my markup (for example, I have disabled the auto-paragraphing filter). I always insert the <!--more--> token between blocks so that the post will break cleanly.

At first I set up my the_content tag like this:

the_content('<div class="morelink"><p>Continue reading <q>' . the_title('', '', FALSE) . '</q></p></div>');

Then I realized that this left me with anchor tags outside the div and p tags, which is absolutely not valid code. I fiddled around with different permutations in templates and entry text but couldn't figure out anything that would get me the markup I wanted, since a) the "more" options are folded into the_content and b) any tags I opened before the <!--more--> token would not be closed.

Eventually I solved my problem by hacking template-functions-post.php and tacking two parameters onto the_content and get_the_content: more_link_before and more_link_after. I am happy with this solution for myself, but I wanted to raise this issue for wider consideration.

The patch I created is ​here if you care to look at it. It works for me, but the problem could probably be solved more elegantly.

Thanks,
Laura

[markjaquith]

Laura,
This is an issue I've also grappled with. I eventually settled upon a regex filter to look for the "read more" link and then reformat it. Here is my code:

add_filter('the_content', 'txfx_show_more_content', 50);

function txfx_show_more_content($text) {
// %linkstart% symbolizes the opening <a href=""> tag for the entry
// you should manually close the link with </a> in your replacement
$replacement = 	'<p class="read-more">' . "\n" . '%linkstart%' . 'Read the rest &raquo;</a>' . "\n" . '</p>';

$site = str_replace('/', '\/', str_replace('.', '\.', get_bloginfo('url'))) . '\/';
$replacement = str_replace('%linkstart%', '$1', $replacement);
	
$text = preg_replace('/(<a href="' . $site . '.*?#more-.*?">)\(more...\)<\/a>/', $replacement, $text);
return $text;
}

Note that it looks for (more...), which is the default text for the_content()... so you have to make sure your template doesn't pass a parameter to the_content(), or it won't work. Other than that, just change the $replacement string, using %linkstart% to designate where <a href="[your permalink]"> goes.

Hope this helps.

[Laurabelle]

Mark,

Neat solution. I like it. Yours is certainly more easily turned into a plugin than mine, which requires direct code editing.

The weakness I see is that it searches for a string that could appear in the text of an entry and (given Murphy's law) will appear at least once. By that time I will, of course, have forgotten all about this code and have no clue what went wrong. Great fun! The problem is easily solvable, but only at the expense of a little elegance. Oh well.

[Nazgul]

Plugin territory.