A Featured Page Widget

1. 

   The widget configuration.

Can I use it outside my sidebar / widget area?

Sure you can! Just call the_widget() wherever you want to display your featured page. If you want to customize it, there’s four arguments:

• page: The page ID. Required.
• title: The widget title.
• image-size: The post thumbnail size.
• link-text: The text that will replace “Continue reading”. You may leave it empty too.

Example:

<?php
the_widget( 'A_Featured_Page_Widget', array( 'page' => 734, 'link-text' => '', 'image-size' => 'large' ) );
?>

If you don’t know the page ID, you can try get_page_by_path() function:

<?php
the_widget( 'A_Featured_Page_Widget', 'page=' . get_page_by_path( 'about' )->ID );
?>

Can I change the default text “Continue reading”?

Yes. In your functions.php file, you cand use the afpw_link_text filter:

<?php
function mytheme_change_afpw_link_text() {
    return 'Learn more';
}

add_filter( 'afpw_link_text', 'mytheme_change_afpw_link_text' );
?>

Why am I unable to define a manual excerpt for my pages?

First, check if the option for excerpts is not showing under “Screen Options”. If that’s the case, probably your theme doesn’t support excerpts in pages. You need to use add_post_type_support() inside your functions.php file:

<?php
function mytheme_add_page_excerpt() {
    add_post_type_support( 'page', 'excerpt' );
}

add_action( 'init', 'mytheme_add_page_excerpt' );
?>

Who are these three little witches on the banner above?

Arnaldo Baptista, Rita Lee and Sérgio Dias, also known as Os Mutantes, a Brazilian psychedelic rock band of the late ’60s. You should check them out!

1.3

• Introduce classes generally used for post thumbnails, such as post-thumbnail and entry-image.
• Update coding standards.

1.2

• Added widget defaults and removed cache functionality to work correctly with the_widget().
• Replaced page-link argument with link-text.

1.1

• Added a filter for the “Continue reading” text.
• Now we have a FAQ.

1.0

• First version.