Wordpress Hack: Anything Can Be Added Anywhere In The Post Content

by Lam Nguyen on Oct 24
66 Comments

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Some of wordpress plugins automatically add their display below your post content which is such as: YARPP (Related Posts) or Sociable …. They added their displays into your post content, but sometime, you want to add your own code before them, even between the introduction and the main content. This article will tell you how to add anything to your wordpress theme just right before others plugin do.

This is the first tutorial that I don’t offer the download link. Just follow these simple steps and you’ll get the nice results.

Hack your theme functions.php file

The only thing you want to do is just hack your theme functions.php file.

Open this file.

In this article, I will add the author bio box into wordpress theme before the Related Posts displays. Write a function that return the author bio box, you can write anywhere, but at the end of your functions.php is avoid messing up your file:

function get_author_bio ($content=''){  

    if(!in_category("Community News")) {
    $post_author_name=get_the_author_meta("display_name");
    $post_author_description=get_the_author_meta("description");      

    $html="<div class='clearfix' id='about_author'>\n";
    $html.="<img width='80' height='80' class='avatar' src='http://www.gravatar.com/avatar.php?gravatar_id=".md5(get_the_author_email()). "&default=".urlencode($GLOBALS['defaultgravatar'])."&size=80&r=PG' alt='PG'/>\n";

    $html.="<div class='author_text'>\n";
    $html.="<h4>Author: <span>".$post_author_name."</span></h4>\n";
    $html.= $post_author_description."\n";
    $html.="</div>\n";
    $html.="<div class='clear'></div>\n";
    $html.="</div>";
    $content .= $html;

    }

    return $content;

}

In Wordpress 2.8 and above, the_author_description(); has been deprecated and replaced with another function: the_author_meta(‘description’);. However, you have to use get_the_author_meta() if you need to return (not display) the information. Take a look at this function’s information at Wordpress Codex.

In this function, I set the condition that the bio box will not display if this post is in Community News category. I’m using the same as above. This function is not return the bio box, it joins the post content and bio box content into one.

Next, you need to hook this function to the_content with code:

add_filter('the_content', 'get_author_bio');

For the example, before you use this hack, your bio box will display after the Related Posts, likes this:

But after you did some hacks in functions.php file, you will get a result likes mine at the end of this post.

To display something at the begin, easy as adding it normally into your post theme file: single.php

Sometime, you want to display your ads right below your post’s introduction. We will need to split the content into two parts, then insert ads code at the middle. Let’s write a function likes this:

function put_middle_content($content='') {

    if ( preg_match('/<span id="(.*?)?"><\/span>/', $content, $matches) ) {

        $content = explode($matches[0], $content, 2);

        $content = $content[0] . $matches[0] . '[YOUR ADS ARE HERE]' . $content[1];
    }

    return $content;

}

If your post has More tag, this function will split the content into 2 parts with delimiter is the More tag. Then, It will combine the content array again with the adding between 2 array strings.

Adding the code below to complete:

add_filter('the_content', 'put_middle_content');

That’s all

Yup, that’s all. Now, you can add anything you want to anywhere, such as: top, middle, and right after the post content that you could not do with the template display file. Your adding’s priority will be always the first.

Author: Lam Nguyen

I'm Lam Nguyen, a 21 year old web developer writing about everything related to web design. I am owner of AEXT.NET and WhoFreelance.com Web Community News. You can catch me on twitter.

Posted in: Popular, Tutorials
Tags: Hack, PHP, the_content, Wordpress, Wordpress Theme

66 User Comments

designfollow 24. Oct, 2009 at 6:52 am #

thanks for thes info.

Reply
Gopal Raju 25. Oct, 2009 at 4:55 am #

Thanks for the hack!

Reply
Brandon Cox 25. Oct, 2009 at 2:17 pm #

How did you know I was looking for this exact hack today? Wow – very cool timing!

Reply
- Lam Nguyen 25. Oct, 2009 at 2:21 pm #
  
  Because some of my clients want to add some ads code inside post content. Thanks for enjoy reading!
  
  Reply
Tutorial City 25. Oct, 2009 at 5:57 pm #

Very clever and useful!

Reply
Mal Milligan 26. Oct, 2009 at 6:31 pm #

Nice hack Dude !! Just got your link from WP Recipes. This is really a beautiful to look at site… lots of eye candy and great title selection. I’m impressed. Now all you need is some PR on your homepage.

Reply
Delighted 26. Oct, 2009 at 6:40 pm #

This is awesome Lam! Very cool.. Thank you Sir

Reply
Lam Nguyen 26. Oct, 2009 at 7:02 pm #

@Mal Milligan: Thank you , but I’m not good at page rank increasing. You’re correct, and I’ll try to increase my page rank.

Reply
Jitendra 28. Oct, 2009 at 12:40 am #

Hi Lam,

I would like to know if we can get the total no. of posts by a specific user?

Reply
- Lam Nguyen 28. Oct, 2009 at 3:39 pm #
  
  Take a look at this, may it helps you!
  http://wordpress.org/support/topic/217402
  
  Reply
Elena 30. Oct, 2009 at 3:01 am #

I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. Nice post!

Reply
sandy 31. Oct, 2009 at 10:07 am #

I was finding from so many days finally found it. Thanks very much.Please tell me how to give style to it.It is coming plain text so i want to add some background.

And aslo a thing like visit website and follow on twitter.

Reply
sandy 31. Oct, 2009 at 10:11 am #

Never mind thanks got it.

Reply
Mia 03. Nov, 2009 at 1:09 pm #

Lam, your site simply ROCKS ! most informative & clearly defined, easy to understand for even a beginner like me Thank you so much for sharing all your knowledge . Wishing you much continued future success within your career endeavors .

Best wishes , M. 

Reply
Mauro 09. Nov, 2009 at 2:16 pm #

Really nice code, thanks for sharing ;D

Reply
Arun 17. Nov, 2009 at 4:31 am #

How do I customize the box via CSS that is what I am looking at. It worked like a charm…but no way I can customize this ?

Reply
- Lam Nguyen 17. Nov, 2009 at 5:52 pm #
  
  It’s easy that you can do by add css style by the id and class name of the elements.
  
  Reply
Pavan Somu 18. Dec, 2009 at 1:08 am #

Thanks for the hack. Its very obvious even for fellow bloggers.

Reply
Pen 2 Net 24. Dec, 2009 at 8:34 am #

This is amazing. I learnt it works wven with WPMU. Does it work with buddypressed WPMU?

Reply
- Lam Nguyen 24. Dec, 2009 at 12:07 pm #
  
  I’ve never used WPMU before, so I’m not sure
  
  Reply
radiaku 27. Dec, 2009 at 8:53 am #

Its work in 2.9.

Its seem not working in me

Reply
krushna 09. Feb, 2010 at 4:32 am #

hi Lam, thanks for the information about wp. can you pls do more post related to wp hacks. it will very helpful for the beginner like me.

Reply
insic 16. Feb, 2010 at 5:59 am #

This will also appears in pages. what is the workaround to make it appear only in post?
insic´s last blog ..WPBuzzer Wordpress Plugin Workaround

Reply