Modify/customise Posts page of Edin theme
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Hi all,
I’m new to WordPress (and to web design in general), and I’m trying to put together a basic site for a project I’m involved in.
My initial attempt uses the Edin theme, which I’ve enjoyed using so far:
https://icpwaterssite.wordpress.com/
but I’m having some trouble with the way posts are displayed.
I’m currently using a static front page and I’ve created a new page called “News” which is set as my posts page. My posts are appearing on this page OK, but the layout seems a little strange. I was expecting the posts page to display a summary list of posts (e.g. post title, the text from the “Excerpt” box and the featured image), which visitors could then click on to read any particular post in full. Instead, it seems to be displaying all the posts in full, stacked one on top of the other in a long list.
I guess this is OK, but as more posts are added this page will become huge, and clicking on a post essentially takes you to an exact duplicate of that post on another page, which gives a slightly odd user experience. It would also be great if the styling of my posts page was the same as the rest of the site (e.g. the “About” page) i.e. an image with the word “News” on it and a summary list of posts below. At present, if I set a featured image for the News page, it just seems to get ignored, along with any text I add to the page body.
Is there something I’m doing wrong here, or is this just how this particular theme handles posts? A previous theme I tried (Publication) didn’t have this problem and the posts appeared as expected, but the overall layout didn’t suit me as well.
A related issue is that, if I set the News page to be one of my three featured pages on the static home screen, the home page then lists all my posts in a huge long list, rather than just showing the most recent, which would seem more sensible? I’m probably making a silly mistake somewhere, but I can’t see how to fix it.
I currently have a Free plan on WordPress.com, so I think I have limited options regarding making modifications. I’m happy to upgrade to a subscription plan if doing so allows me to fix some of these issues.
Thanks very much for any advice!
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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Hi there,
Firstly: Welcome to WordPress.com. :)
I was expecting the posts page to display a summary list of posts (e.g. post title, the text from the “Excerpt” box and the featured image), which visitors could then click on to read any particular post in full.
Edin’s default is to display a full post on the blog page, however, you can make use of the “more” tag to manually create excerpts. Information on the “more” tag, including screenshots of where you can find the tool to insert one, can be found here:
https://en.support.wordpress.com/more-tag/
It would also be great if the styling of my posts page was the same as the rest of the site (e.g. the “About” page) i.e. an image with the word “News” on it and a summary list of posts below. At present, if I set a featured image for the News page, it just seems to get ignored, along with any text I add to the page body.
It’s not possible to display a featured image on the blog page with Edin. You could consider uploading a header via the Customizer, which would display consistently across all pages on your site.
If you decide to upgrade to WordPress.com Premium or Business then you’d also be able to make use of some custom CSS to display the title on the blog page.
A related issue is that, if I set the News page to be one of my three featured pages on the static home screen, the home page then lists all my posts in a huge long list, rather than just showing the most recent, which would seem more sensible? I’m probably making a silly mistake somewhere, but I can’t see how to fix it.
You’re not making a mistake: This is a known issue with Edin and not one that can be fixed. If you don’t want a listing of all of your posts to display, then I recommend choosing a different featured page. You could add a link to News in a footer widget or elsewhere on your site.
Let me know how you get on with that or if you have any extra questions.
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If you want to set your most recent post to appear in the Edin featured pages section you can create a page (called something like “Recent Post”) and then on that page use the display posts shortcode set to only show one post – and nothing else. I’m not sure exactly how it will look but it might be worth testing out to see if it works for you.
Here’s a quick example of how to set up the shortcode:
[display-posts include_excerpt="true" image_size="medium" posts_per_page="1"] -
Hi Siobhan,
Thanks very much for such a fast and helpful reply :-)
The “Read more” tag is exactly what I was looking for and makes the News page much more usable, which is great. I’ll also experiment with headers in the customiser and, once I have approval from my colleagues regarding the basic idea for the site, I’ll upgrade to a Premium account and have a go at modifying the CSS too.
Thanks also for confirming that Edin has a known issue when it comes to including the posts page as a featured item on the Home screen. It’s a shame but, as you suggest, I can just link to another page instead (and at least I can now stop trawling through the menus trying to figure out what I’ve done wrong!).
All the best!
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Ooo, thanks halluke – that sounds like a good idea for a workaround. I’ll give it a go.
Cheers!
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