How to call most recent post to static homepage with excerpt of text

Comments

• JohanSmal

  June 2016

  Ok I've figured it out.

  
  

  I've installed the plugin "PHP Code for Posts", then created two snippets of PHP code within the plugin - one to display the date under a generic heading ("Latest News"), and the other to display an excerpt of the text.

  
  

  PHP code for the first snippet:

  <?php the_date(); ?>
  

  
  

  PHP code for the second snippet:

  <?php $the_query = new WP_Query( 'posts_per_page=1' ); ?>

  <?php while ($the_query -> have_posts()) : $the_query -> the_post(); ?>

  <?php the_excerpt(__('(more…)')); ?>

  <a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>">Read more...</a>

  <?php 

  endwhile;

  wp_reset_postdata();

  ?>

  
  

  BUT NOW:

  I want to increase the amount of words included in the excerpt. Any idea how I can do that?
• JohanSmal

  June 2016 edited June 2016

  Figured it out again.

  
  

  I had to add the following code (which I got from the Wordpress support reference) to the functions.php file:

  
  

  function wpdocs_custom_excerpt_length( $length ) {

  return 100;

  }

  add_filter( 'excerpt_length', 'wpdocs_custom_excerpt_length', 999 );

  
  

  The 100 can be changed to anything you like.