Using Filters With Conditional Tags in Child Themes
On a recent project using a Genesis child theme I found myself in a situation where I wanted to use a filter, but only on certain views, namely the category view and the homepage view. Adding a filter is pretty straight forward, but using that filter in combination with conditional tags you need to add a bit extra instead of just the tags themselves.
Now, the example is for the Genesis Framework, but really the logic behind will work on any child theme using filters. What I wanted to filter was the output of the post meta area, which normally displays both the categories and the tags. I wanted to use a slightly different post meta on the homepage where the tags would be replaced with a Continue reading link.
This is what the filter looks like:
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//Customizing Post Meta
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function forsite_post_meta_filter($post_meta) {
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$post_meta = '[post_categories], <a href="'. get_permalink() .'" title="'. the_title_attribute('echo=0') .'">Continue Reading</a>';
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return $post_meta;
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}
As you can see I am just adding a permalink with a 'Continue Reading' text. Nothing too fancy. Normally you would add your filter and you'd be all done. Like so:
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//Customizing Post Meta
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function forsite_post_meta_filter($post_meta) {
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$post_meta = '[post_categories], <a href="'. get_permalink() .'" title="'. the_title_attribute('echo=0') .'">Continue Reading</a>';
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return $post_meta;
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}
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add_filter('genesis_post_meta', 'forsite_post_meta_filter');
Using Conditial Tags with this filter actually requires the use of an add_action statement. The way to do is by declaring another function which handles the conditional tags. Something like this
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function forsite_post_meta_conditionals() {
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if( is_home() || is_category() ) {
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add_filter('genesis_post_meta', 'forsite_post_meta_filter');
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}
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}
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add_action('wp', 'forsite_post_meta_conditionals');
The if statement determines to actually use this filter only whether you are looking at the home page or the category view. Combined the full code looks like this:
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//Customizing Post Meta
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function forsite_post_meta_filter($post_meta) {
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$post_meta = '[post_categories], <a href="'. get_permalink() .'" title="'. the_title_attribute('echo=0') .'">Continue Reading</a>';
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return $post_meta;
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}
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function forsite_post_meta_conditionals() {
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if( is_home() || is_category() ) {
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add_filter('genesis_post_meta', 'forsite_post_meta_filter');
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}
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}
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add_action('wp', 'forsite_post_meta_conditionals');
More info on conditional tags can be found in the Codex, and more information on WordPress filters. Have you worked with conditional tags and / or filters before?
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Very useful post. Thanks a lot.