custom page with post content using read more

Question

I have a code for a custom page i'm creating that I want to have my own blog archive (formatted customized)

this is my code:

<?php                                                     
                    $args = array(
                                    'posts_per_page' => '-1',
                                    'post_type' => 'post',
                                    'post_status' => 'publish',
                                    'category__in' => $quicksand_categories 
                                    );                     
                    $query = new WP_Query( $args );                                             
                    foreach ($query->posts as $item) {                      
                        $categories = wp_get_post_categories($item->ID);
                        ?>
                        <li id="item" class="item" data-id="id-<?php echo $item->ID ?>" data-type="<?php foreach ($categories as $c) { echo $c . ' ';}?>" >
                        <?php  if (get_option('featured') == 'yes') { ?>
                           <a href="<?php echo get_permalink($item->ID); ?>">                   
                        <?php  echo get_the_post_thumbnail($item->ID);  ?></a>
                        <?php } ?>
                           <br />
                        <?php if(get_option('titles') == 'yes') { ?>
                            <h2><a href="<?php echo get_permalink($item->ID); ?>">
                        <?php echo get_the_title($item->ID); ?>
                            </a></h2>

                <?php echo apply_filters('the_content', $item->post_content); ?>

                <h6 class="alt-h"><a href="<?php echo get_permalink($item->ID); ?>">READ MORE</a></h6>
                <hr/>
                            <?php } ?>
                        </li>                                          
                    <?php  }  ?>
             </ul>

it seems to be working properly, but it doesn't acknowledge the fact that the posts that it's pulling have a "read more" in them. I only want this page to pull the information before the read more of my blog posts, not the entire post.

I originally tried to just use "the_content" but that pulls the contents of the actual page itself not that of the posts. so that's why i'm using

<?php echo apply_filters('the_content', $item->post_content); ?>

I'm probably missing something silly, but any help would be appreciated.

Answer 1

You're actually doing this in a way that is far more complicated than necessary. The foreach is actually excessive. What you want to do is something more like this:

$args = array(
    'posts_per_page' => '-1',
    'post_type' => 'post',
    'post_status' => 'publish',
    'category__in' => $quicksand_categories 
);                     

$query = new WP_Query( $args );

if ($query -> have_posts() {
    while ($query -> have_posts() {
        $query -> the_post();
        // Do your display stuff here
    }
}

This puts the Post object in a global $post variable, so now you can easily use functions like the_title() or the_permalink() to print content without passing around an ID value to a bunch of echo calls.

---

For example:

where you have: <a href="<?php echo get_permalink($item->ID); ?>">

You can now have: <a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>">

Or, instead of $item->post_content, you can just use the_excerpt();

Ultimately, the_excerpt() is what you want to use in this case. Here's a link to the codex entry. There are also some good examples there of how to customize it to your liking (like including a custom "read more" link).