Display Links in Excerpts?

Question

I'm having a problem with the_excerpt and can not find the answer anywhere... I simply want to allow links to be clickable when they are displayed via the_excerpt! There has to be a function for this, rather than relying on a plugin. But I can't find it and the advanced excerpt plugins are so complex that I am unable to find the small snippet which makes this work.

Answer 1

You can use the script I found here: http://aaronrussell.co.uk/legacy/improving-wordpress-the_excerpt/

I've modified it to show links in the excerpt, and removed some of the other functions:

<?php
function keep_my_links($text) {
  global $post;
if ( '' == $text ) {
    $text = get_the_content('');
    $text = apply_filters('the_content', $text);
    $text = str_replace('\]\]\>', ']]&gt;', $text);
    $text = preg_replace('@<script[^>]*?>.*?</script>@si', '', $text);
    $text = strip_tags($text, '<a>');
  }
  return $text;
}
remove_filter('get_the_excerpt', 'wp_trim_excerpt');
add_filter('get_the_excerpt', 'keep_my_links');
?>

The part that fixes it is $text = strip_tags($text, '<a>');. along with remove_filter('get_the_excerpt', 'wp_trim_excerpt');

Answer 2

You can use the following plugin for allowing links and other html tags in the excerpts

Plugin: Show links in excerpts wordpress

I have no affiliation regarding the plugin

Answer 3

The code basically allows a list of comma separated HTML tags to work in your excerpts which are normally stripped by WordPress. Tested on Genesis and works.

 add_filter( 'get_the_content_limit_allowedtags', 'get_the_content_limit_custom_allowedtags' );

function get_the_content_limit_custom_allowedtags() {
// Add custom tags to this string
return '<script>,<style>,<br>,<em>,<i>,<ul>,<ol>,<li>,<a>'; 
}

Source http://daan.kortenba.ch/add-tags-to-genesis-content-limit-in-content-archives/

Answer 4

WordPress strips out tags in wp_trim_words(), which is called by get_the_excerpt(); so we have to filter 'wp_trim_words', basically copying that function with one change: replace wp_strip_all_tags() with strip_tags().

We don't want other functions that run wp_trim_words to be modified, so we add our filter while get_the_excerpt() is running, and remove it when we're done.

// Allow links in excerpts
function sg_trim_words( $text, $num_words, $more, $original_text ) {
    $text = strip_tags( $original_text, '' );
    // @See wp_trim_words in wp-includes/formatting.php
    if ( strpos( _x( 'words', 'Word count type. Do not translate!' ), 'characters' ) === 0 && preg_match( '/^utf\-?8$/i', get_option( 'blog_charset' ) ) ) {
        $text = trim( preg_replace( "/[\n\r\t ]+/", ' ', $text ), ' ' );
        preg_match_all( '/./u', $text, $words_array );
        $words_array = array_slice( $words_array[0], 0, $num_words + 1 );
        $sep = '';
    } else {
        $words_array = preg_split( "/[\n\r\t ]+/", $text, $num_words + 1, PREG_SPLIT_NO_EMPTY );
        $sep = ' ';
    }
    if ( count( $words_array ) > $num_words ) {
        array_pop( $words_array );
        $text = implode( $sep, $words_array );
        $text = $text . $more;
    } else {
        $text = implode( $sep, $words_array );
    }
    // Remove self so we don't affect other functions that use wp_trim_words
    remove_filter( 'wp_trim_words', 'sg_trim_words' );
    return $text;
}
// Be sneaky: add our wp_trim_words filter during excerpt_more filter, which is called immediately prior
function sg_add_trim_words_filter( $excerpt_length ) {
    add_filter( 'wp_trim_words', 'sg_trim_words', 10, 4 );
    return $excerpt_length;
}
add_filter( 'excerpt_more', 'sg_add_trim_words_filter', 1 );

I wrote this gist after reviewing other suggested methods, because I think this is a more targeted solution. The gist will be updated going forward.