Hiding the published-on date in old WordPress posts is requested in many Thesis Customizations. Sometimes this helps in avoiding the content to appear outdated, for the readers of your site.
In this post, I will show you how to hide the date in posts using the Thesis Theme custom files, without the need to tweak any of the core files. To know how – read on!
What we will do at the end of this tutorial?
We will try to do the following at the end of this very simple tutorial:
- Hide Published-on date in the Post Bylines for posts older than 30 days
- Also Hide these dates in Teasers – if the site is using any
Disable the Date Display in Thesis Options
Since we are coming up with our own logic to display the Dates, let us first disable the default date display in Thesis Theme.
To do this, go to WP Admin –> Thesis Options –> Display Options –> Bylines and un-check the “Show published-on date in post byline” option. (Don’t for to click the Big Ass Save Button !)
Now the dates magically disappear on the post bylines!
Hide Dates in Posts older than 30 days
Now on to the job! We will have to display the dates only in posts that were written in the last 30 days and hide them on older posts. To do this:
- Calculate the age of the current post – in number of days
- Display the date only if the posts was written in the last 30 days
The following code will help you calculate the age:
//Number of days this post is old
$daysold = (current_time(timestamp) - get_the_time('U') -
(get_settings('gmt_offset')))/(24*60*60);
To add this date to the Byline item, we would need to override the ‘thesis_hook_byline_item’. Following is the code does that will be added to the –
function add_date_to_byline() {
//Number of days this post is old
$daysold = (current_time(timestamp) - get_the_time('U') -
(get_settings('gmt_offset')))/(24*60*60);
if ($daysold ' . get_the_time(get_option('date_format')) . '';
}
}
add_action('thesis_hook_byline_item', 'add_date_to_byline');
This code, once added will hide dates in all posts older than 30 days.
Oh, we forgot the Teasers!
First we must hide the Date in Teasers, to make sure that the default behavior gets out of the way.
To do this, go to WP Admin –> Design Options –> Teasers –> Teaser Display Options and un-check the “date” option. (Don’t for to click the Big Ass Save Button !)
Now add the following code to your custom_functions.php and this will hide dates from posts older than 30 days, on teasers.
function add_date_to_teaser() {
//Number of days this post is old
$daysold = (current_time(timestamp) - get_the_time('U') -
(get_settings('gmt_offset')))/(24*60*60);
global $thesis_design;
$date_formats = thesis_get_date_formats();
$use_format = ($thesis_design['teasers']['date']['format'] == 'custom') ? $thesis_design['teasers']['date']['custom'] : $date_formats[$thesis_design['teasers']['date']['format']];
if ($daysold ' . "\n";
}
}
add_action('thesis_hook_after_teaser_headline','add_date_to_teaser');
Note we are using the thesis_hook_after_teaser_headline hook for getting things done. Now we are truly done!
Credits
Following posts were useful in obtaining handy information for writing this tutorial.
- Removing the Date from Older Posts in WordPress
- Adding Date based Triggers to your Posts
Hope you found this post useful. If yes, please share it using Twitter and Facebook, for more readers to benefit
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So cool! I've done this on my blog and it works great. Except there was one typo in the “echo” statement for the teasers. There's a . Fixed that and all is well.
Thanks so much!
Pam,
Great that you found it useful… Keep visiting for more such useful ideas
Hi Ashwin,
Just wanted to say that you keep coming up with really helpful WP code that is EASY TO IMPLEMENT!This is the 2nd piece of code I'm lifting blind from your site…
Cheers,
AviD
Hey AviD,
Great that you found it useful. Happy times with Thesis
Regards,
Ashwin
A bit of help Ashwin….
I'd like to integrate the following piece of code for my site with your code. Any ideas?
// Custom Byline Function
function custom_byline() {
echo '
Updated on ' . get_the_time(get_option('date_format'));
if (!is_single())
echo ' | Posted In ' . get_the_category_list(',');
echo '
';
}
add_action('thesis_hook_after_headline', 'custom_byline');
This should be the merged code.
function add_date_to_teaser() {
//Number of days this post is old
$daysold = (current_time(timestamp) – get_the_time('U') -
(get_settings('gmt_offset')))/(24*60*60);
global $thesis_design;
$date_formats = thesis_get_date_formats();
$use_format = ($thesis_design['teasers']['date']['format'] == 'custom') ? $thesis_design['teasers']['date']['custom'] : $date_formats[$thesis_design['teasers']['date']['format']];
if ($daysold if (!is_single()) {
echo '' . 'Updated On ' . get_the_time($use_format) . ' | Posted In ' . get_the_category_list(','). '' . “n”;
echo ' | Posted In ' . get_the_category_list(',');
} else {
echo '' . 'Updated On ' . get_the_time($use_format) . '' . “n”;
}
}
}
add_action('thesis_hook_after_teaser_headline','add_date_to_teaser');
Let me know if it works.
Nope….getting a parse error on this one.
Anything on this Ashwin?Still getting a parse error…
AviD,
I didn't manage to look at this last weekend. I will check it out today and get back to you.
Thanks,
Ashwin
It works for me. I am wondering why it doesn't work for you…. Here is the code…
function add_date_to_byline() {
//Number of days this post is old
$daysold = (current_time(timestamp) – get_the_time('U') -
(get_settings('gmt_offset')))/(24*60*60);
if ($daysold if (!is_single()) {
echo ' Updated on ' . get_the_time(get_option('date_format')) . ''.' | Posted In ' . get_the_category_list(',').'';
} else {
echo ' Updated on ' . get_the_time(get_option('date_format')) . '';
}
}
}
add_action('thesis_hook_byline_item', 'add_date_to_byline');
You can find it working at:
https://thoughtsunlimited.net/apps/sandbox/
On Home page you see the categories – and on single post pages you don't.
HTH. Let me know if it works.
Thanks.
Thanks so much for sandboxing it for me Ashwin! Unfortunately…still no go. Just a question though, did you remove the 30 days check function from your latest modified code?
I think I'm just going to go with your original post code because
A) I really like and NEED the functionality it provides.
B) Formatting is nice but not critical.
I just made it 90 because on my sandbox site – the oldest post is in January.
The code should work with '30' also.
Hey Ashwin,
Can you please let me know as to how do I modify the date to be displayed on the main page in a square, just like the “retweet” button.
Thanks!
Max,
Using CSS, you'll need to give a Background color and padding to the following element, to get the date inside a square:
.custom .headline_meta .published { … }
Hope this helps.
Max,
Using CSS, you'll need to give a Background color and padding to the following element, to get the date inside a square:
.custom .headline_meta .published { … }
Hope this helps.
Thanks for this, exactly what I was looking for… retweeted
Thanks for this, exactly what I was looking for… retweeted
Ashwin,
Jun 16 2nd bg color> color> Headline title here
Great post! This may be a little different subject from your post — trying to make the date “Jun 16″ with a couple of background colors — one small block and another bigger block — by the headline. For example,
it would look like this:
Not using the byline below the headline title.
Is it doable ?? Thanks a million!
Jan,
Yes it can be done with a trick by moving the byline before the headline and having just date in it.
But having the date within the headline… I need to check…
Regards,
Ashwin
Thanks for posting this Ashwin. Is there code for Thesis that can also hide the dates of the comments on older posts?
Hi Ricky,
If you are using a plugin for comments – like Disqus etc. it is not possible.
However if native comments are being used, then it can be possible using the hooks and code tweaks.
Thanks Ashwin. I am using the default WordPress commenting system, however I don't have a lot experience with Thesis hooks. Could you provide a sample of code to hide old comments' dates and times similar to what you did with post dates? I would greatly appreciate it.
let’s see, perhaps u could help.
instead calculating the age, how could I ask if it’s “older than…” and the date that an admin choose??
please, understand it’s not 30 or 90 days old!
As an example… how to put “if it was written before January, 2010. “
I did this a couple of months ago. Turns out that displaying the date on posts is one of the most important things that Google uses to determine relevancy. My site was slapped big time in Google search results because the Google crawler could not find dates on my posts older than 2 months. Yikes!
When I apply your code for the teaser bylines, I receive a Fatal error that says I “Cannot use object of type thesis_design_options as array”. Any ideas?
Ashwin,
Thanks for the helpful post. I was having a hard time with the dates and this post cleared that right up. Would you be willing to do an article/tutorial on adding an optin box to the end of each post?
Hi Adam,
Sure I will take your request and plan for a suitable article that can help.
Thanks again.