Continuum Theme - Excerpt length

Question

So I have been doing some digging and narrowed down the file that I believe is calling for the front page excerpts on all posts. No matter what I change it to, it doesn't seem to adjust.

//get excerpt for feed panels
function con_feed_excerpt() {
$excerpt = get_the_excerpt();       
if (strlen($excerpt)>230) {
    $excerpt = substr($excerpt, 0, 227) . "...";
}
echo $excerpt;
}

This looks to be where it is getting the excerpt length from the first character to the 227th char and then ending with a ...

I've tried changing the 227 and re-uploading to my server and to no avail.

Any clues what might be preventing it?

Answer 1

Here is a custom function I've written to modify your excerpt however you want. You should NOT be changing any core files to make modifications, as these will be overwritten by any updates made to the Wordpress framework:

remove_filter('get_the_excerpt', 'wp_trim_excerpt');
add_filter('get_the_excerpt', 'preserve_excerpt_format');
function preserve_excerpt_format($text)
{
    global $post;
    $raw_excerpt = $text;
    if ('' == $text )
    {
        $text = get_the_content('');
        $text = strip_shortcodes($text);
        $text = apply_filters('the_content', $text);
        $text = str_replace(']]>', ']]>', $text);

        $exceptions = '<p>,<a>,<em>,<strong>,<br>'; //PRESERVE THESE TAGS, ADD/REMOVE AS NEEDED
        $text = strip_tags($text, $exceptions);

        $maxCount = 55; //DEFAULT WP WORD COUNT, INCREASE AS NEEDED
        $excerpt_length = apply_filters('excerpt_length', $maxCount);

        $moreText = '.... <a class="blue" href="'.get_permalink($post->ID).'">Read More &gt;&gt;</a>'; //CUSTOM MORE TEXT, CHANGE AS NEEDED
        $excerpt_more = apply_filters('excerpt_more', $moreText);

        $words = preg_split("/[\n\r\t ]+/", $text, $excerpt_length+1, PREG_SPLIT_NO_EMPTY);
        if(count($words) > $excerpt_length)
        {
            array_pop($words);
            $text = implode(' ', $words);
            $text = $text.$excerpt_more;
        }
        else
            $text = implode(' ', $words);
    }
    return apply_filters('wp_trim_excerpt', $text, $raw_excerpt);
}

Place this in the functions.php file of your current theme, and change as needed.

Answer 2

I did seem to get it working with a custom plugin. There doesn't seem to be an option for adjusting the front of site feed versus the category feeds. I found out later that modifying the 227 figure to say 800 just lengthened the excerpt for the individual feed and not for the front page posts.

All is well with an excerpt plugin though, lets me set both which is exactly what I wanted.