By Mohsin at Blogging Bits

A few days ago when I made some modifications to my blog’s template and added a featured posts box, I was asked how did I do that. It’s nothing too difficult or technical. All I did was installed the required Plugins, inserted the right code, and did a bit of styling to specify three of my favorite posts as featured.

There are a number of reasons why you might want to display a specific post on a specific part of your blog. You may want to display only one post on your blog homepage but still want to show the latest entries in the sidebar, or you may want to highlight the important posts, just like I did, to drive more visitors to those posts.

The following method gives you complete control over how, where, and which parts of your selected posts are shown.

So, without further ado, let’s do it!

Install required Plugins

Install Get-a-Post and Content Extract WordPress Plugins.

Get-a-Post displays a specific post (or Page) with standard WP template tags, while Content Extract provides PHP functions to provide extended extracts functionality.

You’ll use the combination of both to get a post title and post excerpt to appear wherever you want.

Insert the code

Insert the following code in your template file where you want the post to appear.

<?php get_a_post(31); ?>

Insert your post ID where it says ‘31′, but nothing is going to happen right now. You’ll have to insert the title template tag for the post title to appear.

<?php get_a_post(31); ?>
    <h1><a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></h1>

Now that you have your post’s title showing where you specified, it’s time to let the second Plugin take over.

<?php get_a_post(31); ?>
    <h1><a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></h1>
    <?php wswwpx_content_extract ( 'Continue reading..', 20, 20 ); ?></div>

The string ‘Continue reading..’ makes up the link that takes you to the full post - which is placed at the end of the extract - so replace it with your own text.

The second parameter ‘20′ controls how many words to show before truncating the text, and this is the most interesting part. You can have it display one line, two lines or as many lines as you like. With so much control in your hand, you can make your posts easily fit in the sidebar or any other small area in your template. Plus, just copy the above code, and repeat it to display more posts. Remember to change the post ID so you won’t have the same post repeating many times.

This is it. You can style the whole thing as you like.

Just so you can see how I styled my featured posts box, here is the code.

<div id="featured"><div class="fbox"><?php get_a_post(31); ?>
    <h1><a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></h1>
    <?php wswwpx_content_extract ( 'Continue reading..', 20, 20 ); ?></div>

(Repeated thrice with different post IDs)

And the CSS.

#featured{
width: 940px;
border-bottom: 1px solid #d4cbb4;
border-top: 3px solid #4a3705;
background: #fffdf6 url(images/featured.jpg) bottom right no-repeat;
margin: 12px 0;
padding-bottom: 8px;
float: left;
font-size: 90%;
}
.fbox{
width: 300px;
float: left;
margin: 8px 0 0 9px;
}
.fbox h1{
font-size: 130%;
}
.fbox a{
color: #823d00;
}

Please don’t use the above CSS code, as it is meant to be used only on my blog.

Side notes

• There is a WordPress function that fetches a post by ID, but it’s too complicated for my taste.
• You can also use the excerpt template tag, but it does not have any customizable parameters.
• If you specify the post excerpt in Write Post subpanel, it will override your specified word-count for truncation.

There may be other ways to achieve the same result without using any extra Plugins, so, if you know of such alternative methods, please let me know in the comments.

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I am Mohsin from Blogging Bits. I am an aspiring young blogger, and I write about creating successful blogs over at Blogging Bits. Be sure to drop by my place for a drink!