Excerpt “feature” does not work…

cordman
(@cordman)

19 years, 3 months ago

I’m testing the current beta (01/02/05) build and found that the Excerpt “feature” for writing a new post (by clicking on Advanced Editing) does not work. At 1st I thought this was a bug, but after digging for a bit, I found a reference to “The Loop” and that you have to put <?php the_excerpt(); ?> into “The Loop”. So I figured I’d play along and amuse myself. I can tell you that finding “The Loop” is not very amusing at all, especially since it is different from what is posted on “The Loop” page. I did, however, locate the elusive little creature and modified it by putting <?php the_excerpt(); ?> in several different places. I still could not get the excerpt to display correctly.

So what we have here is a “feature” that is offered by the mere click of a button, BUT one has to modify “The Loop” (after it’s found) in order for it to work…and then it still doesn’t work correctly!

Here’s my take on this mess:
If a “feature” is offered by the mere click of a button, then that feature should work by default. Then if someone has the knowledge and would like to tweak their installation, they can seek out “The Loop” and modify it to their hearts content. Does anyone agree with that?

Note: I also used the stable version 1.2.2 just to make sure that it wasn’t beta specific and got the same results.

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)

Kafkaesqui
(@kafkaesqui)

19 years, 3 months ago

1. You are using a beta. There are some rules to that, such as:

http://wordpress.org/support/3/12916

2. As you are using a beta, there are to be changes expected since the last release. One of these is to how The Loop is handled. For 1.5, see here:

http://codex.wordpress.org/The_Loop

3. A “feature” is not necessarily something that is turned on by default. In WordPress, since all *switching* involves template tags, turning one on or off involves editing your template.

4. I have no problem getting excerpts displayed on my blog, 1.2.x and 1.5. If you can explain what you are (or aren’t) seeing when you implement the_excerpt(), perhaps we can help.

Thread Starter cordman
(@cordman)

19 years, 3 months ago

In regards to item #3 in your list, I believe you are missing my point. By merely clicking a button (Advanced Editing) you are presented with the excerpt field. I personally believe that it is wrong to expect the “average” user to understand that in order for that “feature” to actually work, he/she has to find “The Loop” and modify the code to get the feature to work properly. If a feature is offered by default, as this one is, then it should work by default (correctly & w/o further file modification).

Could you please direct me to another software application where this same procedure is expected in order to get a feature working correctly, because I honestly cannot think of one.

NuclearMoose
(@nuclearmoose)

19 years, 3 months ago

A criticism presented in a respectful manner always garners a lot more attention than claims of a “mess” being made.

You can visit http://mosquito.wordpress.org and log all the enhancement requests you like.

Thread Starter cordman
(@cordman)

19 years, 3 months ago

I stand corrected, NuclearMoose. I apologize for using the term “mess”. That’s definately not the term that I should have used, but that’s what came off of my fingers at the time 🙂

Ryan Boren
(@ryan)

19 years, 3 months ago

The current default theme for 1.5 uses the full content for the front page and excerpts for archives. Other excerpt policies require changing the template.

sireh
(@sireh)

19 years, 3 months ago

I’m new here, please help me. about the problem with the excerpt function, please, how can i solve it? and where should i paste the code?