How to customize category_description()?

Question

In a website I am working on ,there are 50 categories + sub categories, each has a a very long description text, then in an archive page I display all the titles of the categories + their description ,but it makes more sense to show the title of each category + a few words of each description (excerpt?) and a "read more" link ,to the full content of that category .

so I have read the codex and also a lot of articles on the Web, but still I cant understand the reason why this sort of functionality doesn't exist in WordPress by default. It exists only for posts -Function Reference/the excerpt.

Second question is what is the most elegant way to solve it ?

There are a few plugins or snippets of code that enable you to add html editor to the category description in the admin side, but selecting the read more link doesnt work there:(

Is the only solution to write a very long Hook/filter on the category_description() function ?

to elaborate: this is my code in category.php , - what is does is diplaying the parent category and all its children(titles+ full descriptions)

    <?php 
    $CategoryPar = get_category( get_query_var( 'cat' ) ); 
    $cat_id = $CategoryPar->cat_ID;
      $args = array(
      'orderby' => 'name',
      'child_of'           => $cat_id,
      'hide_empty' => FALSE,
      'order' => 'ASC'
            );
    $Ecategories = get_categories($args);

    echo'<div class="cat-sub-title">';

    foreach($Ecategories as $Ecategory) { 
     echo '<p><a href="' . get_category_link( $Ecategory->term_id ) . '" title="' . sprintf( __( "View all posts in %s" ), $Ecategory->name ) . '" ' . '>' . $Ecategory->name.'</a> </p> ';
     echo '<div class="cat-sub-title-desc">'. $Ecategory->description . '</div>';
                       } 
    echo'</div>';

    ?>

Answer 1

I've been looking for a filter for category_description() and I have not found any. You could use wp_trim_words() with category_description() to get the desired result. For example:

$cat_ID = 4;

// wp_trim_words( $text, $num_words = 55, $more = null );
echo wp_trim_words( category_description( $cat_ID ), 55, '<a href="' . get_category_link( $cat_ID ) . '">' . __("Read more", "text-domain" ) . '</a>' );

Update: I've found the filter

add_filter( 'category_description', 'cyb_trim_category_desc', 10, 2 );
function cyb_trim_category_desc( $desc, $cat_id ) {

    // wp_trim_words( $text, $num_words = 55, $more = null );
    $desc = wp_trim_words( $desc, 55, '<a href="' . get_category_link( $cat_id ) . '">' . __("Read more", "text-domain" ) . '</a>' );

    return $desc;
}

Note: if you use the generic the_archive_description() function in your theme, the above filter works perfectly for categories archvie.

Answer 2

Here is the solution that worked on my end using jquery pasted this code on function.php file. this is only if you want to truncate the description of your category page on woocommerce.

/**
 * @snippet       Truncate Short Description @ WooCommerce category description
 * @author        Steve Ayo
 */
 

 
add_action( 'woocommerce_after_main_content', 'bbloomer_woocommerce_short_description_truncate_read_more' );
 
function bbloomer_woocommerce_short_description_truncate_read_more() { 
   wc_enqueue_js('
        var show_char = 300;
        var ellipses = "... ";
        var content = $(".term-description").html();
        if (content.length > show_char) {
            var a = content.substr(0, show_char);
            var b = content.substr(show_char - content.length);
            var html = a + "<span class=\'truncated\' style=\'display:none\'>" + b + "</span> <span class=\'truncated-expander\'>" + ellipses + "<a href=\'#\' class=\'read-more\'>Read more</a></span>";
            $(".term-description").html(html);
        }
        $(".read-more").click(function(e) {
            e.preventDefault();
            $(".term-description .truncated").toggle();
            if($(".term-description .truncated").is(":visible")){
                $(".read-more").text("Show Less")
            } else{
                $(".read-more").text("Read More")
            }
        });

   ');
}

Answer 3

Late to the game but this is the hook for anyone using WC 6.7.0 or higher.

woocommerce_taxonomy_archive_description_raw