Add Words Counter In The Excerpt Metabox

[alex-ye]

Hi WordPress Lovers :) , WordPress 3.6 fouces on "Content Editing" a small good idea is to add a words counter in the bottom of excerpt meta-box , and a small tip of the current theme max words count ..

[helen]

Not quite sure what you mean by the current theme max word count. This isn't something core implements, as far as I know.

[kovshenin]

The excerpt length can be controlled by the theme (or plugin) using the excerpt_length filter and WordPress will automatically trim the output of the_excerpt() if the provided one is longer. I don't think it's a very good idea to limit the excerpt length in the post edit ui.

[alex-ye]

Replying to kovshenin:

I don't think it's a very good idea to limit the excerpt length in the post edit ui.

Sure Thing , Many users of WordPress have a difficulty about the preferred excerpt length so my suggestion is to add a words counter ( like post content field ) and add a small tip shows the value of excerpt_length filter ..

the_excerpt() displays the full value of excerpt field if it is provided by the author , but if the excerpt field is empty , then it print a custom length ( excerpt_length filter value ) of the post content .

So my suggestion doesn't mean "limit the excerpt length in post edit UI" :)

Sorry , If my English isn't very good :(

[alex-ye]

Replying to helen:

Not quite sure what you mean by the current theme max word count. This isn't something core implements, as far as I know.

As kovshenin explain , I meant the excerpt_length filter value .

[kovshenin]

You're right, the_excerpt is only trimmed when it's auto-generated from the content, and not when a custom excerpt has been provided. Quite a few themes that use the excerpt would rely on them to be 55 words or less, but most themes are okay with longer ones. Adding a tip that shows the excerpt length is limiting in the post edit ui. It's not a hard limit, but it's still a limit :)

If themes are afraid that users use custom excerpts which are longer than the defined excerpt length and if the theme design really relies on that, they could just use wp_trim_words on whatever is returned from get_the_excerpt(), whether it's an auto-generated or a custom one.

That said, I do feel a pain that when I'm writing a post, I can preview the post, but there's no way to see how it would look on the front page with the thumbnail and excerpt and everything, unless I privately publish it or something. But I guess that's a whole different problem :)

[alex-ye]

Replying to kovshenin:

If themes are afraid that users use custom excerpts which are longer than the defined excerpt length and if the theme design really relies on that, they could just use wp_trim_words on whatever is returned from get_the_excerpt(), whether it's an auto-generated or a custom one.

Yes , many themes using such functions to limit the excerpt length , but this is not what I worry about , It's about how the user understand the theme functionality , Adding "Words Counter" , "Tips" ... etc help the user to use his theme on a powerful way ...

If you feel a confuse about adding the tip of the max words count , what about adding the words counter in the excerpt meta-box ?

That said, I do feel a pain that when I'm writing a post, I can preview the post, but there's no way to see how it would look on the front page with the thumbnail and excerpt and everything, unless I privately publish it or something. But I guess that's a whole different problem :)

You are right , Many users of WordPress have a problems of how the front-end displays their posts and pages ... etc , and this is the reason about why WordPress introduce a features like 'editor-styles' and 'post-thumbnail' ... etc

So I think if we can do something help to solve this problem it will be great :)

[iamfriendly]

Could an idea here be to use something like what Twitter.com now does? In so far as it allows you to type more than 140 characters, but it highlights what you've typed beyond that limit? Would probably need a little hint to indicate what that highlighted text means.

[helen]

I rather lean no on this, despite having built this exact feature out a few times. I'm just not sure it's a majority need; it's also interesting to note that I've implemented it and seen it implemented a variety of ways in the past as well. Also, I think we'd have to talk adding a theme support thing or something, because filters can be conditionally added and are not a reliable indicator as to a "hard" limit.

[iamfriendly]

My thoughts were that this is probably plugin territory to be honest. I think it's a neat idea, I just get the impression the amount of hints/help info needed to explain what is going on could potentially outweigh any help it offered people.