Monday, May 18, 2009

Post Summaries v1.1.4 - Sunset!

Check out bxA2 »!
Background
I was looking for the ability to display the first few lines of a post and a link to the rest of the post, where the link would either expand the post inline, or jump to the single post page view. Most of all, I didn't want to edit existing posts and I didn't want to segment a post by wrapping a section with <span> tags[bxA].

I didn't find a "post summaries" hack that fit my requirements, so I wrote my own ...

Since this was my first blogger extension/hack, I gave it the rather unexciting acronym of "bxA".

With bxA, at a minimum, you can specify how much of a post you want to be automatically displayed as part of the summary and what behaviour you want for the link: expand/collapse the post inline or jump to a single post page.

Installation:
  • Click [Layout] ...
  • Click [Edit HTML] ...
  • Click [Download Full Template], and save a copy of your existing template.
  • Check [Expand Widget Templates] ...
  • In your template, search for "]]></b:skin>" and replace it with a copy of the code from here.
  • bxA is currently configured to display the first 30 words of your post as the summary (bxA.sDs=30; bxA.sDt='w';). The "read more" link is configured to expand/collapse the post inline (bxA.dPa='i';).
  • For example, if you want bxA to only show the first 10% of your post and jump to the single post page when the reader clicks on the "read more" link, you would change the following in the code that you just pasted in: bxA.sDs=10; bxA.sDt='p'; bxA.dPa='p';
  • After you have finished configuring how you want bxA to behave, search for "<data:post.body/>" in your template.
  • Replace "<data:post.body/>" with the code from here.
  • Click on [Save Template] ...
  • Done!

How do I ...
  • How do I style my "read more" link?
    • The variable bxA.lCn can contain the class name for the style you wish to use to style your "read more" link. The 'bxAlink' style can be used as an example to start with.
  • How do I force the summary to occur at a specific point?


    • Insert the code "[bxA]" anywhere in a post to override the configured summary length.
    • To force a post to always display, place the "[bxA]" code at the end of the post.
    • To force the summary to never display, place the "[bxA]" code at the beginning of the post.
  • How do I change the display post action for a single post?
    • To change the display post action to display inline, use the "[​bxAi]" code!
    • To change the display post action to display the single post page, use the "[​bxAp]" code!
  • How do I control whether to display a short post instead of displaying a summary?


    • The variable, bxA.pSr, controls how much larger the post has to be than the summary. In the default code, it is set to 1.5, which means the raw text of the post has to be at least 1.5 times the size of the summary in order for the summary to be displayed with the "read more" link.
  • How do I always display the summary and "read more" link, even if there are only a few words displayed after the "read more" link is clicked?


    • Change the variable, bxA.pSr, to '0.1'.
  • How do I turn off the default configuration and only have a summary appear on the post that I specifically want it to?


    • Change the variable, bxA.sDs, to 1000000. This will effectively turn-off the automatic summary creation. Insert the "[bxA]" code into the posts where you want a summary to be displayed.

bxA 1.1.4 has been tested, as of May 15th, 2009, using Windows XP and the most recent stable versions of: Safari, IE, Firefox, Opera and Chrome.

72 comments:

Tobias said...

Hi - Great hack. Unfortunately I cannot get it to work for my blogger template.
I would appreciate some help fixing it, please.
I followed your instructions and left the default settings.
However, I get the full post by default. Clicking on it collapses the post entirely despite the 35 word setting. At the bottom there is a bxApage link next to the Read More. I tried the default blogger template and some others but no change. Could you check it out please at obiter-dictum.com?
Many thanks
Tobias

hbd said...

Thanks! Typo on my part. I missed escaping the tag brackets for one of the XML data elements in my post above. Instead of displaying the text for the element, such that it could be copied and subsequently pasted, my post hid the XML element and displayed nothing as a parameter for the bxAinit function. Thanks again for catching it!

To fix in your template, search for:

bxAinit(&quot;&quot;);

and replace it with:

bxAinit(&quot;<data:post.id/>&quot;);

Regards, Acheron

Tobias said...

Excellent, works beautifully now. Many thanks!
Tobias

J U U T H said...

Acheron, thanks! This is sooo helpful :). It works wonderfully, your efforts will definitely improve the looks of many blogs - mine as well.

Just one question: all my posts have the same format: title-pic-text. Only the pics disappear :(. Would you help me with this?

Greatly appreciate it!


Juuth

Pacific Forest Trust said...

This is exactly what I was looking for minus one feature. So, first thanks. Now, the request, please. Any chance you could tell me how I would modify this so that any picture put into a post as the very first piece remains in the shortened, summary version as well as appearing when the post is expanded? In other words, so that the picture is always visible.

J U U T H said...

Hey Wow A, thanks for your answer about working your way around the pics. I understand now. Looking forward to your upgrade! Should I check in on a daily, weekly or monthly basis...?

Juuth

hbd said...

Hi Juuth/PFT,

It should take me about a week (maybe two) to add in the ability to use a 'break here' code and the ability to preserve HTML formatting/ pictures. In the meantime, if you want, you can change the following function:

function bxAnoHTML(h) { var t = h; t = t.replace(/<script(.*?)>((.|\n)*?)(<\/script>)/gi, ' '); t = t.replace(/<.*?>/g, ' '); return t; }

to:

function bxAnoHTML(h) { var t = h; return t; }

You will have to increase the number of characters or words in the summary because the embedded HTML will be included in the count.

Regards, Acheron

Pacific Forest Trust said...

Acheron:

Excellent, thank you for the photo code. Works great. Very helpful and very generous in abetting a worthy non-profit. Much appreciated.

J U U T H said...

Fan-tas-tic!
:D

Nathan said...

very helpful, thanks!

is/will there be a way to preserve the style of the content in the summary portion; currently appears as a style-less block of text.

Paulo D. said...

Hello Acheron,

I would like to translate it to Portuguese and post in my blog.

I will put a link to original post.

what do you think?

Thank you

Pamela Smith said...

Thank you so much for this fantastic upgrade. I love this blog tool, but this was the main thing that was missing.
Bless you for your hard work...your changes work wonderfully!

hbd said...

Hi Nathan,

I'm working on updating it to leave in the HTML formatting in, and properly close the tags when the summary portion gets extracted. I.e. "<i>This is in italics, but it gets summarized partway through this sentence and the <i> tag isn't closed with an </i>".

In the interim, you can change the function referenced in my comment "Hi Juuth/PFT,", about six comments up. This should work for the most part if you use the "x number of words" configuration, which you will have to increase because the (hidden) HTML tags and their attribute settings will be counted as "words".

I've searched for various ways that others have already implemented HTML parsers, but I seem to be delving off into way too much code ... I've decided to go with the KISS method ... I hope to have something in place within a week.

Regards, Acheron

hbd said...

Hi Paulo, feel free to translate! Regards, Acheron

hbd said...

Hi P! Thanks for the words of encouragement. Regards, Acheron

Nathan said...

great, thanks!

Nathan said...

Insert the code "[bxA]" anywhere in a post to override the configured summary length.

When I place [bxA] in my posts it displays as text. Is there a way to format or tag the code? Or should I wait until you have break-here code developed?

Thanks again for this great resource!

Nathan

hbd said...

Hi Nathan,

To use the break code, you will need to install the new version of bxA.

Copy the new Javascript section (v1.1.0) from the first light blue box and paste it over the old v1.0.1 code in your template.

Copy the new XHTML from the second light blue box and paste it over the old v1.0.1 XHTML in your template.

I will be trying to minimize the amount of code/XHTML that has to be pasted into a template ... in the next version.

Regards, Acheron

Nathan said...

I re-inserted all the code, and the [bxa] is still displaying as text: http://worshiprenewalfile.blogspot.com
any ideas?

hbd said...

Hi Nathan, check your code and look for [XbxA] and change it to just [bxA]. It occurs in two places in the Javascript. In trying to write about the "[bxA]" code and using it in my blog, bxA was picking up the first place that I typed "[bxA]" and inserting the summary break. I tried to get clever and I inserted a hidden X in my post, which included the code. But when the code is copied and pasted, the hidden "X" comes along for the ride. My apologies and thanks for catching my error! Regards, Acheron

Samizdat said...

Hi--thanks for this. It's the only one of these hacks that works for me so far. However, I'm having problems with the [bxA] tag--even after I insert it, the posts remain cut off at 35 words. Am I doing something wrong?

Samizdat said...

Never mind; fixed it. My stupid mistake.

Nathan said...

perfect, thanks!

How would you recommend I enable printer-friendly pages? I'm thinking of having a full post appear in a pop-up window with 'Print this' at the top. Does that sound best? I think I need something like:

... a href="javascript:window.open(location.href)" onclick="javascript:window.open()">Printer-Friendly Page ...

Am I on the right track? How do I make the new window take a print.css stylesheet?

Is there any way to build this all into the bxA function to begin with?

BTW, do you have a PayPal tip jar or something?

Thanks,

Nathan

Nathan said...

(or

... a href="javascript:window.open(#)" onclick="javascript:window.open(#)">Printer-Friendly Page ...

hbd said...

Hi Samizdat! I don't think it was your mistake, it was mine. Nathan reported the same behaviour. It was related to me trying to have a post about the new "[bxA]" code on a blog that uses bxA. My "New Features" box contains the "[bxA]" code as one of the bullets, which was triggering the summary, resulting in partial "New Features" box being displayed. To fix it, I tried to get clever and embed a hidden span with an "X" in it. I.e. "[XbxA]". Problem was, I replaced all occurrences of "[bxA]" in the post with the hidden span version, resulting in the hidden "X" coming along for the copy/paste, inside of the Javascript, effectively breaking the "[bxA]" function. All fixed now! Thanks for your patience and thanks again to Nathan! Regards, Acheron

hbd said...

Hi Nathan,

RE: printer friendly pages

I did some quick research:

1. Modify your style sheet to include a print format section, which will condition what is built, in memory, invisible to the reader, and then sent to the printer, when the reader selects File->Print.
a) Style sheet and link
b) Style sheet
c) Another suggestion was a print media style sheet with a "noprint" style that you had to use in conjunction with wrapping the content you don't want printed with span tags?
d) And yet another suggestion was a print media style sheet and a "print" style that you had to add to existing page elements as an additional class?

2. Use Javascript to open a new window and push the printer friendly content into the new window.
a) Wrap the printer friendly block of elements with a container div. Not sure how this will work with Blogger ...
b) Using existing divs. However, you would have to replicate the order in which the divs are pushed to the new window.

As for the new window taking a print media style sheet ... at the moment, no idea (other than using embedded styles instead).

If you leave the whole "printer friendly" issue with me for a week ... or so ... I will see what I can propose?

RE: PayPal tip jar?

How about, instead of a PayPal tip jar, a small "bx" icon that links back to my blog, and I, in turn, post a list of the blogs that have installed my hacks?

Regards, Acheron

Nathan said...

re:all = sounds good!

Shubhra Saxena said...

Hi - this sounds like exactly what I need for a new blog that I have started. However, I am extremely illiterate in html, and this is my first time, so I would appreciate some help. I managed to insert the first part of the code that you have, but could not find the (data:post.body/) in my template code, to paste the second part. I am using a "customized template", but I tried with the Classic Template also, and couldn't find it either. Would you have any suggestions? Where should I post the second part of the your code? Since this is my first time, I could just be doing something really stupid!
Many thanks for your help!

Regards,
Shubhra

Shubhra Saxena said...

Never mind! I fixed it! Thanks so much for the code...

Shubhra

hbd said...

Hi Shubhra,

I noticed your first comment in my eMail this morning ... sipping on some Tim Horton's coffee. My wife absolutely loves their coffee, she even buys their fine ground for our home coffee maker. For me, I like my coffee a lot more full bodied and with more bite.

Back to the topic at hand!

Did a quick search for classic templates and discovered that the classic template XML is a tad bit different than the new layouts XML. At that point, I was in the process of trying to figure out how you could get your template to me, so I could take a look at it. I pulled up my Dashboard to respond to your comment and I noticed that a second comment landed!

Glad to hear that you fixed the issue! I am also glad bxA is meeting your needs!

If there is something that I can improve on in my documentation or the functionality of, please let me know!

Regards, from snowy Canada, Acheron

Kevin Dunphy said...

I was just reading and getting ready to try your hack & I read that you're in "Tim Horton" land...... =>Canadian or close to it! That is unless TH has expanded further! It's a staple in our household.

Just about to input your code - good stuff. I hope it works....
Regards!

Nathan said...

re: printer-friendly pop-ups -- this looks promising; I'm going to try it:
http://tinyurl.com/cjprinterfriendly

hbd said...

Hi Kevin! Yes, I'm Canadian. Why do you think I called my extension/hack "bxeh"! Let me know if you have any issues! Regards, Acheron

hbd said...

Hi Nathan!

RE: Printer friendly pop-up

I just checked out the demo. Is there a way to configure it to retain any formatting?

Further to what you were looking for, did you visualize the pop-up as containing the text title of the blog, the text title of the post, the post (including all formatting and images) and the comments?

No header. No sidebar. No footer.

If so, would having the printer friendly button only appear on the single post page make sense?

Back to your comment about adding the functionality to my Post Summaries hack ... I'm adding it to the future enhancements post.

Regards, Acheron

Nathan said...

I just checked out the demo. Is there a way to configure it to retain any formatting?

Yes, it comes with its own configurable CSS file -- very nice.

did you visualize the pop-up as containing the text title of the blog ...

Title of the post, content of the post, no comments. Title is the only tricky part -- I have the CJ script working, but I don't know how to get it to take the title of the post in the popup window.

If so, would having the printer friendly button only appear on the single post page make sense?

Yes: for the CJ script, the Print link will have to only appear on the post's unique page; otherwise the CJ script won't know which post to put in the popup.

I suppose there could also be a way to tell people that if they expand a post on the main page, they won't see the Printer-Friendly link, but if they go to the post's unique URL they will see it.

Or, maybe the READ MORE could automatically send them to the unique location instead of expanding the entry on the existing page. Is that a possible configuration in your bxA script?

hbd said...

Hi Nathan, interesting! With respect to having the link go to the single post page instead of expanding inline, yes, you can, all you have to do is make the variable bxA.dPa (displayPostAction), equal to 'p' instead of 'i'. Further to having the printer friendly button on the main page ... very possible to do! Regards, Acheron

Kevin Dunphy said...

Success! It did indeed work, eh.... I started off having the short post and right after it was the complete post. Not sure why, probably a FF issue. I cleared the cache & then just logged out/in and voila - it was there. TYVM - It's just what I was looking for and actually someone on another site referred everyone here.
Now if rest of the issues were as easy to resolve.... Oh well

BTW - I did add your "BX" Icon on my site. Please take a look and make sure it's acceptable. Thanks again! I'm sure I'll refer others here when they have this issue..

Regards,
KD http://stuff4men-fish.blogspot.com/

hbd said...

Hey KD, glad to hear everything worked out! Thanks for adding a link back! I will reciprocate, hopefully over the weekend. I've been making some CSS modifications to my template and ... it tends to be a goat ... one change looks good on Firefox, but not so much on Internet Explorer, maybe Opera. I find that if a change looks good on Firefox, it looks even better on Chrome and Safari? Have a good weekend! Regards, Acheron

Jonathan Barnett said...

Hi there. Blogspot newbie and I'm here to try to help my brother out with his blog. His posts tend to be really long, and this is something he really needs.

I have the same problem Shubhra Saxena, (above) who wrote:

"...I managed to insert the first part of the code that you have, but could not find the (data:post.body/) in my template code, to paste the second part... Where should I post the second part of the your code?"

Shubhra claimed to be HTML illiterate, yet managed to "fix it". What does that make me?! LOL.

Shubhra or Acheron, please post fix, if you have one.

Many thanks in advance. Why isn't this a default feature in blogger templates? (Sorry, I'm a wordpress user, but please don't hate me for that).

Jonathan Barnett said...

duh.

I figured it out too, and it wasn't my (lack of) HTML skills. It was failure to follow instructions:
"Check [Expand Widget Templates] ..."
Once I did that I was able to proceed per your instructions.

Thanks a million and wish me luck.

hbd said...

Hi questionaids, what template are you using? Can you post a copy of it to Blogger Help on Google Groups? Regards, Acheron

hbd said...

That check box is a real pain, especially when you've been making a few edits and realize that you can't find the next chunk of template that you want to tweak. If all I am modifying is the style sheet, I don't bother with checking it ...

Jeremy Mathews said...

Thanks for writing this cool script! Unfortunately, I'm having a bit of trouble. The settings and the BxA tags all seem to work fine, but then the full post repeats on the main page. I was wondering if you could help me figure out where I went wrong.

The problem occurs in both the inline and post mode. All the text from my post still displays on the main page. The "Read more…" or "Read post" tag, depending on the settings, appears in its proper place, but after it, the whole article restarts, and appears from beginning to end. For the inline setup, the post appears correctly after clicking the "read more" link.

The blog is www.thesamedame.com. I'll keep the glitch there for a little bit if you want to take a look at it. (I'll let you know if I figure out the problem.

Thanks!

Jeremy Mathews said...

Also, I'm using the Minima template with different a completely different color scheme, but no other hacks other than the banner (which wasn't an option back in the day)

I did try clearing the cache after reading Kevin Dunphy's post that described the same problem, but it didn't help. ("I started off having the short post and right after it was the complete post. Not sure why, probably a FF issue. I cleared the cache & then just logged out/in and voila - it was there.")

Jeremy Mathews said...

OK—sorry to triple comment, but I figured it out: I misread the meaning of "paste over" for the second part of the program, and pasted it above the tag. Sorry for the confusion. Working great now!

hbd said...

Hi Jeremy, it sounds like the embedded script that gets appended after the post isn't firing to initialize the summary ... but, I've just checked your blog with Firefox, IE, Chrome, Opera and Safari (Windows XP) and it appears to be working correctly. But, given that I have made a typo/error in my post, twice now, I'm going to verify the code as it cuts and pastes against the linked text files. Regards, Acheron
P.S. Interesting post about the picture mix-up!

hbd said...

Hi Jeremy, just compared the code in the post and the code in the text files and they are a match. Did you copy the entire contents of the code boxes? I've left a line above and below from the template that isn't supposed to be copied, as a visual reference point, but perhaps I should remove them? Regards, Acheron

hbd said...

Hi Jeremy, I have to stop responding to a comment from my eMail and log into Blogger to see what other comments may have been left. There is a wee bit of a delay between a comment making it from Blogger to my eMail account. Regards, Acheron

Jeremy Mathews said...

Hi Acheron!

Sorry you didn't see my later posts first. I didn't mean to waste your time! Thanks for looking into it and making such detailed responses.

I'm really loving the amazing flexibility of bxA—I don't have to worry about updating my archival posts, and I can add the break points wherever I want to the new stuff—fantastic.

Nathan's posts about a printer-friendly version gave me a feature idea. I have no idea how hard it would be to code, but assuming that you've already done all the hard work and it would be relatively easy to setup, it might be cool to add a mode with both the expandable button and the permalink/printerfriendly version—maybe a 'pi' or 'd' (dual) mode. It would basically be the same as the inlay mode, but with an extra 'permalink' or 'printer friendly' link after the 'read more' & 'collapse' links. Anyway, that's just an idea I had after reading Nathan's post. Thanks again for the great work!

hbd said...

Hi Jeremy,

No worries, I grabbed your first comment and ran with it. I should have checked Blogger for follow-up comments. I'm glad to hear that you find my extension/hack useful!

Thank you and your welcome!

With respect to "printer friendly" pages ... great minds think alike! I'm planning on incorporating a printer friendly button that will appear beside whatever "read more" option has been chosen.

Essentially another variable that is true or false, similar to the ones that turn the entire summary and/or post into a link.

It will pop-up a dialog box prior to generating the printer friendly browser page. The dialog box will have options to include or exclude key elements of the page: blog title; sidebar; post footer; images; etc. At that point, it will build a page that is suitable for printing.

I plan on reusing some code that I have from another project, in which one configured an eBay SYI description using configurable sections and blocks, which were then rendered for display inside another browser window, complete with styles. All the code was client side.

Regards, Acheron

Nathan said...

One other quick thing: I have another Blogger blog on a Classic Template instead of a Layout and can't get bXa to work. I figured the code should go at

.. /style> instead of .. /b:skin> and

.. $BlogItemBody$> instead of .. data:post.body/>

Is that right? Or does bXa not work for Classic Templates? If not, and if getting it to work would be tricky, it's probably not worth it, since Classic Templates have been deprecated. But maybe there's something simple I'm doing wrong.

hbd said...

Hi Nathan, I'm not familiar with classic templates, but if it isn't working, I think it would be because the classic template isn't an XML template and all of the XML statements from the second chunk of code would need to be modified. If you post the template to my Google Group, Blogger eXtensions, I will take a look at it and get back to you. Regards, Acheron

The Jet Set Girls said...

Thanks for the hard work on the code. I got it to work perfectly. Here's my question: Is there a way to make the "Read More" link pop up in a new window? It would be great to get the extra page views.

Here's an example of a Blogger blog that does what I'm talking about: http://www.thebeautyoflifeblog.com

Look forward to your feedback.

hbd said...

Hi JetSetGirls!

Glad that you are finding it (bxA) useful!

If you want the "displayPostAction" to jump to the single post page view, instead of expanding the post inline, change the variable, bxA.dPa, from being equal to 'i', to being equal to 'p'.

Look for bxA.dPa = 'i'; and change it to bxA.dPa = 'p';

Thanks again for the positive feedback!

Regards, Acheron

Derek Asirvadem said...

I have some experience with technical writing, etc; no exp with Java. This is my first blog, and I really wanted the first page to look great with many summaries.

Your script worked (at least thus far, I still have to publish & get feedback.

The only confusion I had was re "paste over top of".

Thanks !

Derek Asirvadem said...

Oh, and I must say, the extension & implementation is well thought out (I am a database guru). Eg. I 'wanted' the 'Read More' to open a new page, archive-style, but the way it displays is superior, just use the 'Back' button to get back to the main page.

Regards & thanks again.
Derek

hbd said...

Hi Derek!

Thanks for the positive feedback on bxA and for the feedback about "paste over top of". I've changed that part of the instructions, you're right, it needed to be reworded!

Presently, I am a manager, but, my first job in 1988, fresh out of University, was as a COBOL and RPG programmer.

At the moment, to feed my inner tech/geek, I've been playing with client-side Javascript. In the works for this hack is converting it to an onLoad function, which I hope may allow removing most of the XML section. I still will have a marker div, to simplify the processing logic and ensure, given the variety of templates that can be out there, correct identification of all the post bodies.

Have a good one!

Regards, Acheron

Derek Asirvadem said...

I cut my teeth on COBOL/DIBOL/RPG in the 1970's, so I really identify with you. My inner geek demanded that I stay on the technical side ... these days I work with Sybase.

Published, and confirmed, [bxA] works brilliantly.

I have two new questions.

1 How do I set up keywords (Labels) in each Post (not main page) so that the search engines can find the Post (not just the main page) ?

2 Do you have a technically correct 3-column template: Controls on the left; structure in the middle; Detail [either list of x posts on the main page; or header plus one Post on a Post page] ? Maybe an HTML structure for "Layout" section so that we can cook our own ?

Thanks again
derek.asirvadem@gmail.com

hbd said...

Hi Derek,

I left a comment on the label query on the SEO post.

As for a three column template, I don't have one, but there are tons of them out there, but I wouldn't bank on them being technically "correct".

I was planning on creating one for my own use, as I am intrigued with the Blogger template engine and currently spending some of my spare time trying to dissect it.

The template that I am using is based off one of the Blogger ones and it is ... pretty sloppy in the use of CSS and HTML structure. My plan was to clean up the structure of my existing template, learning as I go, and then create other templates.

You can do some pretty interesting layout with CSS, tempered by the quirky differences between browsers.

Let me know if you find a three column one that hasn't been hacked up too badly!

Regards, Acheron

Jamie said...

Totally bloody brilliant! Just what I needed.

Anonymous said...

Hi Acheron
thnx so much for this hack!
i've a question as i'm a beginner & i don't have really a background on programming .
if i replace
<data:post.body/>
as you asked us above, could that make a problem later, specially when i apply some hacks they asked me to add some codes after
<data:post.body/>
?!
hope you ll explain me!
also excuse me to translate thistutorial :)

hbd said...

Hi الـطـالـب!

No worries. The <data:post.body/> tag is still there (in two places)!

See below:

<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType != &quot;item&quot;'>

<div expr:id='&quot;bxAs&quot; + data:post.id' expr:onclick='&quot;javascript:bxAclick(\&quot;&quot; + data:post.id + &quot;\&quot;);&quot;'/>

<div expr:id='&quot;bxAb&quot; + data:post.id' expr:onclick='&quot;javascript:bxAclick(\&quot;&quot; + data:post.id + &quot;\&quot;);&quot;'>
<data:post.body/></div>

<a expr:href='data:post.url' expr:id='&quot;bxAp&quot; + data:post.id'>bxAv110</a>

<a expr:href='&quot;javascript:void(0);&quot;' expr:id='&quot;bxAm&quot; + data:post.id' expr:onclick='&quot;javascript:bxAclick(\&quot;&quot; + data:post.id + &quot;\&quot;);&quot;'>bxAv110</a>

<a expr:href='&quot;javascript:void(0);&quot;' expr:id='&quot;bxAl&quot; + data:post.id' expr:onclick='&quot;javascript:bxAclick(\&quot;&quot; + data:post.id + &quot;\&quot;);&quot;'>bxAv110</a>

&lt;script type=&quot;text/javascript&quot;&gt;
&lt;!--
bxAinit(&quot;<data:post.id/>&quot;);
//--&gt;
&lt;/script&gt;

<b:else/>

<div expr:id='&quot;bxAb&quot; + data:post.id'>
<data:post.body/></div>

&lt;script type=&quot;text/javascript&quot;&gt;
&lt;!--
bxAclean(&quot;<data:post.id/>&quot;);
//--&gt;
&lt;/script&gt;

</b:if>

Parents Under Construction said...

I am so close but yet so far from figuring this out. Thank you so much for everything that you have done but can you help me figure out what I did wrong? I have no idea what I'm doing and it has taken us weeks of research to even get this far... in fact, we had gotten nowhere until I found you! So thank you.

My problem is that the "more" button isn't linking to anything, it's as though it doesn't work at all.

The other issue I would like to figure out is that I'm not a big fan of the way the "more" looks. I had found your blog by reading a thread you had posted on the blogger help site and you were helping a guy with post summaries and I checked out hsi blog and really like the way his "[read post]" looks, here it is: http://jessedillon.blogspot.com/ Can you explain how to change ours to look like that?

Thank you so much for any help you can give!

Parents Under Construction said...

Nevermind!! I just realized that I have been viewing it in preview mode, I never actually saved the template so now that I have saved it your code is working just fine! Thank you for your help,we have been trying to figure this out for what feels like forever and with your help we have finally done it! woo hoo!

hbd said...

Hi Parents Under Construction!

If you want to remove the blue box style from the link and have it immediately follow the summary text, you can change "bxA.lCn = 'bxAlink';" to "bxA.lCn = '';"

All the best!

wfleet said...

Gee, Acheron, this is so chic. So far so very good. I'm holding my breath. Being able to choose WHERE *I* want to break the piece seems like a miracle. I hope Blogger gets in touch with you and just makes your stuff a FEATURE!!!! with money and credit of course.

For those who have trouble finding the pieces to replace -- if they do Ctrl F when they're in their edit HTML area, a search box will appear at the bottom of the screen and they can paste in the ]]b:skin bit etc and it'll find it for them.

Even tho I'd read all the comments, I copied the bxA bit from here --> (How do I force the summary to occur at a specific point?

* Insert the code "[​bxA]" anywhere in a post to override the configured summary length.) and it didn't work until I just typed it in! if you could fix that, many would be saved anguish.

Also, for the non-geeek like me, what's the diff between a java script include and a java script embedded? Do us non-nerds care which we use?

Congratulations again. Now if you could only fix our health care system while you're at it . . .

hbd said...

Hi wfleet!

Thanks for the feedback!

With respect to the [bxA] code, displayed within the actual "Post Summaries" post, I had to embed a hidden character in order for it to be displayed in my post and ignored by the bxA program, running in automatic display mode. Guess I will just have to embed an actual [bxA] code ...

With respect to whether or not one should or should not use a Javascript include ... the advantage to using an include is if I make small changes to the bxA code, they would be reflected immediately by those who use an include.

As for the health care system ... that one is beyond me!

wfleet said...

The reason I haven't Voted in the Poll is that I put my More box wherever *I* want it -- and that varies with each entry. I don't think that's a choice in the poll?

My gratitude floweth over for this freedom.

Adi F. Paputungan said...

You ROCK Acheron! This's just what I need. Other's tips just make my template went berserk.

Now, I'm still configuring to make the [read more] become red.

Thanks a bunch.

Adi

amrita said...

Thanks for the hack. I have one question. Do you have a solution for removing the ... before the MORE. I couldn't seem to find it anywhere in the hack.

amrita said...

Greetings: I left a comment/asked a question the other day, but I don't see it listed.

I love this hack, it worked well. One additional thing I need is how to remove the "..." before the MORE.

Thanks for your help. Amrita

hbd said...

Hi amrita!

I just got back from the lake! To remove the ... after the summary, set:

bxA.aTs = '';

Anything between the single quotes gets appended to the summary.

All the best!