Advanced Excerpt - Enhanced Edition

A significantly enhanced version of the Advanced Excerpt WordPress plugin with improved HTML handling, RSS compatibility, and powerful new features.

Looking for installation steps, FAQ, or the full version history? See readme.txt.

🎯 New Features

1. Homepage Category Filter

• Filter homepage posts by multiple categories
• Dynamic category selection with checkboxes
• Fully compatible with pagination
• OR logic: displays posts from ANY selected category
• Also applies to the site's own default RSS/Atom feed (e.g. /feed/)

2. Block Finish Mode

• Stop excerpt at the next block-level element after length reached
• Supports 37 block-level tags: br, p, div, blockquote, li, td, th, h1-h6, article, section, header, footer, aside, nav, ul, ol, table, tr, pre, form, fieldset, dl, dt, dd, hr, figure, figcaption, main, address, details, summary, dialog
• Also stops as soon as the current inline element closes (a, strong, b, em, i, span, code, mark, small, sub, sup, u, s, abbr, cite, q) so a long stretch of inline content (e.g. several links in a row) can't drag the excerpt on indefinitely while waiting for a distant block boundary
• Default finish mode for new installations
• Creates natural-looking excerpt boundaries

3. Smart Tag Closing

• No more broken HTML in excerpts!
• Automatically tracks and closes all unclosed tags and maintains proper nesting structure
• Strips any trailing malformed tag fragment (e.g. a missing closing >) left over from the source content, so excerpts never end mid-tag
• Recognizes HTML5 void elements (<hr>, <br>, <img>, etc.) even without a trailing slash, so they're never mistaken for a tag needing a closing counterpart
• Plain text shaped like a tag (e.g. <Free>, <New>) is never mistaken for real markup
• Removes unnecessary consecutive <br> tags for better readability (when not stripped per settings)
• Only <a> tags with a real, followable href are kept (when anchors are not stripped per settings), while the following are unwrapped to their visible text instead:
  • Empty href=""
  • Same-page fragments (href="#", href="#section2") — meaningless once the content is lifted out of the full page into an excerpt
  • Bare anchors with no href at all (e.g. <a name="section">, an in-page jump target rather than a link)
  • javascript:/data:/vbscript: pseudo-schemes — not a real destination outside a browser executing script

4. Header Content Skipping

• Option to skip H1-H6 text content (not just the tags)
• Header text not counted toward excerpt length

5. RSS-Safe Output

• RSS Max Length: optional character cap on RSS feed excerpts, truncated safely so HTML always stays valid and properly closed
• Slack-specific formatting — detected automatically from the RSS request's User-Agent, no setting to toggle; other feed readers get standard HTML, unaffected by the following:
  • Links use a minimal <a href="URL">Text</a> tag, stripped down to nothing but href — no target/rel/data-* attributes, which is what let complex links leak through as raw, unparsed visible text in the first place. A literal | occurring naturally within link text is also replaced with a forward slash (/), since Slack's RSS app converts incoming HTML to its own mrkdwn internally before rendering and that conversion uses | as its own link delimiter
  • Strip Links from Slack Feeds (on by default): removes every link, leaving visible text only, even if <a> is otherwise allowed by Strip Tags. Also disrupts any URL-shaped plain text with an invisible Word Joiner character to stop Slack from auto-linking it — the text still reads and copies normally.
  • Strip Empty Lines from Slack Feeds (on by default): optionally collapses blank lines between top-level blocks (paragraphs, headings, blockquotes, <hr>, lists) down to a single newline
  • Additional tag conversions for better compatibility
    • <blockquote> → markdown-style quoted text (> prefix)
    • <dl>/<dt>/<dd> → Term: Definition format
    • <hr> → text separator (───)
    • <br> → a real line break
    • Stray < and > occurring naturally in plain text are escaped (without double-encoding any entity already present)

6. Advanced List Handling

• Set maximum list items across all lists
• Tracks nested list depth (UL/OL) and properly closes all list levels, preventing mid-list cutoffs
• Slack-optimized list formatting - converts HTML lists to formatted text
  • Browser-style formatting for familiar appearance
  • <ul> → alternating bullet styles by depth (• ◦ ▪ ▫)
  • <ol> → alternating numbering styles (1. a) i))
  • Proper indentation for nested lists (2 spaces per level)
  • Multi-line list items properly indented
  • Unnecessary blank lines removed between sibling list items and around a nested sublist

7. Table Management

• Smart table row tracking
• Proper closing of <table>, <tr>, <td>, <th>, <tbody>, <thead>, <tfoot>
• Clean table structure in excerpts

8. Top Level Structure Limiting

• Limit maximum top-level tables and lists
• Nested lists count as one structure
• All structures properly closed when limit reached

9. List/Table Ellipsis

• Separate ellipsis marker for truncated lists and tables
• For lists: displayed as a list item without bullet
• For tables: displayed as plain text below the table
• Customizable or can be disabled (leave empty)
• Works with item/row limits

10. Excerpt Cut & Excerpt Only Shortcodes

• [excerpt_cut]: Hide content from excerpts, show in full posts
  • Optional text parameter for replacement text in excerpts
  • [excerpt_cut]hidden content[/excerpt_cut] - removes from excerpt
  • [excerpt_cut text="Summary..."]detailed content[/excerpt_cut] - shows summary in excerpt
• [excerpt_only]: Show content only in excerpts, hide from full posts
  • Optional text parameter for replacement text in full posts
  • [excerpt_only]teaser text[/excerpt_only] - only in excerpts
  • [excerpt_only text="Full details..."]teaser[/excerpt_only] - swap content
• Multiple sections supported
• Nested shortcodes automatically ignored
• Unpaired [excerpt_cut] cuts to end of post

⚙️ Configuration Options

New Advanced Settings

• Finish: now also offers Block mode alongside the original Exact/Word/Sentence options — see Block Finish Mode above
• Skip Headers: Remove H1-H6 content from excerpts
• Max List Items (Total): Limit total list items across all nesting levels (0 = unlimited)
• Max Top-Level List Items: Limit only top-level list items, excludes nested items (0 = unlimited)
• Max Top-Level Structures: Limit tables/lists (0 = unlimited)
• RSS Max Length (chars): Maximum character limit for RSS feeds (0 = unlimited) - ensures valid, properly-closed HTML even after truncation
• Strip Links from Slack Feeds (on by default): removes every link from Slack's output — see RSS-Safe Output above
• Strip Empty Lines from Slack Feeds (on by default): collapses blank lines between top-level blocks in Slack's plain-text conversion — see RSS-Safe Output above
• Homepage Category Filter: Multi-select category filtering

💡 Usage Examples

Basic Usage

The plugin automatically enhances all excerpts. No code changes needed!

Advanced Template Tag

<?php
the_advanced_excerpt('length=50&length_type=words&skip_headers=1&max_list_items=5');
?>

Homepage Category Filtering

1. Go to Settings → Excerpt
2. Enable "Show only posts from specific categories on the homepage"
3. Select desired categories
4. Ensure Settings → Reading is set to "Your latest posts"

Excerpt Shortcodes

Control what appears in excerpts vs full posts:

Basic Usage - Hide from Excerpts

<p>This appears everywhere.</p>

[excerpt_cut]
<h2>This heading only appears in full post</h2>
<p>This detailed content is hidden from excerpts.</p>
[/excerpt_cut]

<p>This also appears everywhere.</p>

Advanced - Replacement Text

<p>Introduction text...</p>

[excerpt_cut text="Read the full analysis in the post..."]
<h2>Detailed Analysis</h2>
<p>Five paragraphs of in-depth analysis...</p>
<ul>
  <li>Complex point 1</li>
  <li>Complex point 2</li>
</ul>
[/excerpt_cut]

<p>Conclusion...</p>

Excerpt shows: "Introduction text... Read the full analysis in the post... Conclusion..." Full post shows: All content including the detailed analysis

Excerpt-Only Content

<p>Article introduction...</p>

[excerpt_only]
<p><strong>Click to read more about this fascinating topic!</strong></p>
[/excerpt_only]

<p>Main article content continues...</p>

Excerpt shows: The teaser call-to-action Full post shows: Just the main content (teaser hidden)

Swapping Content

[excerpt_only text="<p>This article explores advanced techniques...</p>"]
<p><strong>Subscribe to read this exclusive content!</strong></p>
[/excerpt_only]

<p>Article content here...</p>

Excerpt shows: "Subscribe to read this exclusive content!" Full post shows: "This article explores advanced techniques..."

Features:

• Multiple sections supported in one post
• [excerpt_cut] - hide from excerpts (with optional replacement)
• [excerpt_only] - show only in excerpts (with optional post replacement)
• Nested shortcodes automatically ignored
• Unpaired [excerpt_cut] cuts to end of post
• Works with all other excerpt features

📄 License

GPLv3 - Same as the original Advanced Excerpt plugin

👏 Credits

• Original Plugin: Advanced Excerpt by WPKube & basvd

📧 Support

For issues with the enhanced features, please open a GitHub issue. For original plugin features, refer to the WordPress.org plugin page.

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⚠️ Important: This is an enhanced, unofficial version. Always backup your site before installing any plugin.