Decide which text is used as excerpt

Hi there.

try adding this PHP Snippet:

function replace_content_on_the_fly($text){
    $replace = array(
        // 'words to find' => 'replace with this'
        'This is the text to be replaced with' => ''
    );
    $text = str_replace(array_keys($replace), $replace, $text);
    return $text;
    }
add_filter('the_excerpt', 'replace_content_on_the_fly');

https://docs.generatepress.com/article/adding-php/

Hi David,

Nice to chat again :)

I assume adding that snippet means I would need to manually write the excerpt for each specific page in the category? And that I would need one snippet per page?

Isn't there an "easier" way?

I'm thinking about when I for instance receive some emails from marketers. It's quite often that the one-liner preview, next to the subject, in the inbox, is then not visible anywhere once I open the email the email. I believe it is called "Hidden preview text" ( see a bit down on this page: https://www.litmus.com/blog/the-ultimate-guide-to-preview-text-support/ ).

They have this solution:

So I guess I could potentially copy a part of the text I would like to be shown in the excerpt, and place that inside the div at the top of the page?

The div did not show... but it is visible on the link if you scroll down to that header

That code i provided only needs to be added once to your site, as per this documents instructions:

https://docs.generatepress.com/article/adding-php/

Within the code you need to update this line to include the text you want to remove:

'This is the text to be replaced with' => ''

Then whenever an excerpt contains that text it will automatically remove it.

Ok!
I added the code, and it works :)

However, and pardon my stupid question, but how is the code limited to only searching for that specific text in the excerpt part, on that particular category page?

It feels like I am missing to include in the code to only perform this replace function on a specific category page? Like I can do with an array, when I want to block certain pages from the search function.

Regards
Michael

Hi there,

Try this:

add_filter('the_excerpt', function( $text ) {
    if ( is_category( 'your-category-slug' ) ) {
        $replace = array(
            // 'words to find' => 'replace with this'
            'This is the text to be replaced with' => ''
        );

        $text = str_replace(array_keys($replace), $replace, $text);
    }

    return $text;
} );

Just update the slug and you should be good to go :)

Thank Tom (and David)! You guys are simply awesome :)

Glad we could help :)

Hi again,
I have a follow-up question on the snippet I installed previously.

How do I add more words that are to be filtered out (replaced with blank)?

I've tried several different ways of changing the snippet, but could not make it works.

Best regards

Michael

You can add multiple strings in the array eg.:

$replace = array(
   // 'words to find' => 'replace with this'
   'This is the text to be replaced with' => '',
   'This is the other text to be replaced with' => ''
);

Thank you David!

You're welcome