Bug: 4th-most-recent featured post is never displayed using Textbook theme
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The Textbook theme is beautiful and I really like it. Great job! That makes this bug all the more frustrating, because Textbook is really a beautiful theme.
In the Customizer under the Featured Content tab, the text says “Your theme supports up to 4 posts in its featured content area.” I think perhaps at one time during development this was true, but something was changed and all of the CSS (and this text) was not updated cleanly.
In all of the screenshots on the theme documentation and in my own installation there are just THREE posts in the featured content area, not four.
However, it looks like the theme is still selecting the first FOUR posts with the matching “featured” tag, and it is just displaying THREE of them, making one (the 4th-most-recent) disappear.
Details: I have a blog that is actually a blog–it has chronological posts. I’d like the most recent three posts to be the featured ones, but I’d like the rest of my site to display chronologically. So I’ve defined the featured tag (“GURPS”) and applied it to ALL of my posts. Then I’ve made sure that “Also display tagged posts outside the Featured Content area.” is UNCHECKED. If I have six posts (call them #6 – #1), the behavior I expect from this theme would be:
Featured posts area: 6 – 5 – 4
“Regular” home page: 3 – 2 – 1However, what *actually* happens is this:
Featured posts area: 6 – 5 – 4
“Regular” home page: 2 – 1Notice post #3 is missing. I think what is happening is that the theme is selecting four posts to display on the “Featured” posts area, then it is actually displaying only three of them, leaving the fourth invisible on the home page.
You can replicate this problem by going to the right-most featured post on the home page, scrolling to the bottom, then using the “next post” link a few times to make a note of what posts exist. Then go back to the home page and you will notice the post that is immediately chronologically before the right-most feature post does not display anywhere, even though it has the featured tag (“GURPS”).
I’m hoping you can help because I really love this theme!
(I thought about posting this on the theme forum but it says I should not do that if I have a wordpress.com site, so I am posting it here. Although I bet it is a problem with the theme! Also note that I am using the theme as-is, without the Custom Design upgrade.)
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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Hi,
Part of the problem is that at Customize > Featured Content, there is a note that says, “Your theme supports up to 4 posts in its featured content area.” It should say 4 items instead of 4 posts. [@Staff: Please note this error, possibly at typo, which is contradicted by the Textbook theme guide, demo (as explained below), and by observation of the theme’s behavior on a test site.]
Contrary to the “up to 4 posts” misinformation provided at Customize > Featured Content, the Textbook theme guide specifies that the featured content section “supports up to four items,” not four posts. Also, in the Featured Content section of the theme guide, you’ll find the following at item #4 of the instructions:
Create up to three posts. For each post you’d like to feature, use the Tags & Categories area of the editor to add the tag you chose under Customize → Featured Content. With this theme, you can also tag pages to be displayed as Featured Content, in addition to posts.
There the maximum number of posts is correctly given as three, not four.
So the four items limit in the featured content includes two sections, one that includes up to 3 posts or pages to which the featured content tag is added, plus 1 featured page that displays above theme. The latter featured page may be added at Customize > Theme Options.
@Staff: Please note the following reported possible bug, that I’ve replicated on a test site.Then I’ve made sure that “Also display tagged posts outside the Featured Content area.” is UNCHECKED.
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However, what *actually* happens is this:Featured posts area: 6 – 5 – 4
“Regular” home page: 2 – 1In my tests, the featured posts section displays the three posts with the featured content tag that have the most recent publish date/time. If I leave the box labeled “Also display tagged posts outside the Featured Content area.” unchecked at Customize > Featured Content, and mark six items with the featured content tag, then I find that one item is omitted from the posts in the blog page outside the Featured Content area. In fact, just as in your example, the one omitted in my tests is the third oldest one.
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I suspect that staff will not consider the missing post item a bug, since the issue can be eliminated by applying the featured content tag to no more than three posts, as one is instructed to in the theme guide.
As I mentioned above, item #4 of the instructions in the Featured Content section of the theme guide says to “Create up to three posts.”
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It probably should say instead, somewhere in that section, “Tag up to three posts with the Featured Content tag.” I believe that’s what is implied by these two sentences:
Create up to three posts. For each post you’d like to feature, use the Tags & Categories area of the editor to add the tag you chose under Customize → Featured Content.
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I have to disagree there — It’s definitely a bug. I defend the theme’s behavior of displaying three featured posts, hiding the fourth, then displaying the fifth and subsequent posts. The “Also display tagged posts outside the Featured Content area” toggle also shows the theme is not acting as intended.
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I’m aware of the “Also display tagged posts outside the Featured Content area.” setting, and have taken that into account in my posts above. I’m not defending the theme’s behavior. My argument for why it might not be considered a bug (by staff), consists of the following:
1. The theme guide indicates that the featured content tag should be assigned to a maximum of three posts. Although it certainly poorly worded, as I’ve mentioned above, I believe that’s what is being said in item #4 of the Featured Content instructions.
2. If you add the featured content tag to no more than three posts, then the missing post issue described by @mianateacher and myself doesn’t occur.
Whether you, @mianateacher, or I might consider it a bug probably won’t be factor in staff’s evaluation of its bugginess. More importantly, I’ve tried to point out that both the note at Customize > Featured Content and the instructions in the Featured Content section of the theme guide could each use some editing for the purposes of correction and/or clarification.
I’d like to add that rather than changing the note “Your theme supports up to 4 posts in its featured content area.” at Customize > Featured Content so that it says “4 items” as I suggested in my first post above, it might better if it just said “3 posts” there, since the fourth item, a featured page, can only be added at Customize > Theme Options.
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It looks like a php typo to me, not intended behavior that is explained badly.
If I change these two lines in the theme’s “inc/jetpack.php” to read:27 'max_posts' => 3, 28 'post_types' => array( 'post' ),(instead of the previous “4” and [post, page, jetpack-portfolio]) then the originally reported problem goes away on a test site I just installed.
I tried various other settings for the featured content area and this change produced the correct behavior and didn’t break anything.
This is more of a trial-and-error fix though, I am not Mr. WordPress. But I don’t think there is a good reason for that function to try and grab 4 things, nor is there a good reason for it to grab things that aren’t posts, as the mechanism to feature a page is separate from that query from what I can tell.
I noticed I have to check, then uncheck the Customizer “Featured Content” checkbox “Also display tagged posts outside the Featured Content area” to make the changes live on my site. I assume there is some cache that this is clearing or something.
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Hi folks, here’s what I see currently:
https://wordpress.com/theme/textbook says “up to four items” including one page and three posts. It also includes a fifth are for a title and description of the featured content area, though you need to fill that in using the customizer rather than selecting a post or page to display there.
The Featured Content area in TextBook is displayed above testimonials and posts on the homepage, and supports up to four items.
To add a title and description to the Featured Content section, navigate to Customize → Theme Options. In this panel, you can also select a Featured Page to display above the Featured posts area.
I honestly don’t see where a fourth post would fit in neatly, so I’m fairly sure @musicdoc1 is correct in that it’s not a bug so much as a misunderstanding.
I’ll check in with our theme’s team too to see if they have input on this, but in the meantime if you’d like to “feature” a fourth post, you might simply add it as a sticky post so it appears next in the list of posts on the front page.
I’ll let you know what we hear back.
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Oh, one more quick clarification:
4th-most-recent featured post
I recommend adding your feature tag to only three posts, unless you’re also going to check this box in the customizer:
Also display tagged posts outside the Featured Content area.
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I honestly don’t see where a fourth post would fit in neatly
supernovia, thank you but this needs a gentle redirect: I think (though other people should correct me if I’m wrong) no one on this thread is hoping for a fourth post. the bug is that people want the dropped/missing post behavior to stop.
When you check with the team, I hope you can frame the problem this way. Musicdoc1 made good points about the documentation being unclear, but that is not what I see as the bug being reported here.
Even with the documentation changed, adding the featured tag on more than three things should not break the theme in this strange way where the 4th post disappears.
Someone should not be able to download a theme and through what I’d say is a fairly normal process of setting tags on posts cause their fourth post to disappear while the 1-3 and 5-infinity posts do not. That’s not a misunderstanding, it’s a bug. At least that is my feeling!
(And I think I found the bug for you in the lines I listed.)
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@niftyc,
fairly normal process of setting tags
I tend to agree with this characterization, and therefore with your opinion as to whether it’s a bug. While it might seem peculiar to tag every eligible post with the featured content tag, logically that seems to be precisely the course one should take if your goal is that the featured posts area always displays the three latest feature tag posts, without having to remove the tag from the fourth newest post each time you publish a new feature tag post. -
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Yes, I’m sorry if I was unclear when I first posted. The bug is that one post disappears and it can’t be found anywhere!
I don’t want to change the layout or add a different number of featured posts, I just don’t want what you are calling the 4th-most-recent post to disappear (I called it #3 in my example but I meant the same thing).
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Got it, so basically even though this option is not checked:
Also display tagged posts outside the Featured Content area.
You would like the system to determine that it has only displayed three posts, and show the fourth since after all because it is not displayed elsewhere. Do I understand that correctly now?
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You would like the system to determine that it has only displayed three posts, and show the fourth since after all because it is not displayed elsewhere. Do I understand that correctly now?
Yes. It doesn’t need to “determine” anything though, it just needs to stop grabbing too many posts because of the php typo where there is 4 instead of a 3. Trying to get to the very essence of it I guess I would say:
- There is a space for three posts in the Texbook theme’s featured content area.
- The theme’s php is currently filtering FOUR posts to display in the featured content area, but it should only filter THREE posts, as there are only three posts in the featured content area.
- Since it filters four, the fourth is apparently marked as displayed already, and disappears from the site.
That’s why my suggested code correction changes a 4 to a 3, and changes the type to ‘post’. I hope that helps!
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The following question also arises, if the option “Also display tagged posts outside the Featured Content area.” is unchecked:
Why aren’t all posts with the featured content tag beyond the third most recent, that is all of those not displayed in the featured post area, omitted from posts outside the Featured Content area. If one adds the Featured Content tag to 100 posts, then one would or might expect 97 to be omitted from the posts outside the Featured Content area. Instead, only one (the fourth most recent) is omitted.I can summarize the issues with the wording of the documentation again if you like. The most obvious issue regarding wording in documentation is in the sentence at Customize > Featured Content that says:
Your theme supports up to 4 posts in its featured content area.
Which is inaccurate. The featured content area does not and cannot support four posts. It supports up to a maximum of four items (posts or pages), only three of which can be posts.
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I would suggest revising “Also display tagged posts outside the Featured Content area” to “Also display the three featured content posts outside the Featured Content area.” This would cover cases where more than three posts have the featured content tag.
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Understood, I’ve asked our theme team to take a look. We’ll update when we have more info.
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