Genesis Quick Tips

There’s a lot of small code snippets I use often but don’t warrant their own post. This is where I’ll collect them. If you have any quick tips, feel free to share in the comments.

Also check my general code snippets page.

Setup the child theme
As described here, it’s a good idea to create a theme setup function in which you’ll place all the filters, actions, and theme-supported features. This is what I include at the top of my functions.php file in my child themes. Any time below you see an add_action or add_filter, that part goes in the setup function, and the function itself goes after the setup function.

Force a page layout
This is very useful for ensuring custom pages you build for a client aren’t broken by them changing the page layout (ex: home page). Or, changing the page layout to something other than the default on archive pages (ex: category).

Unregister unused page layouts

Structural Wrap
This adds a div with the class of “wrap” in an element. In the code below I’m adding it to #inner for a full-width page layout. More details.

Add Image Sizes
See Mark Jaquith’s postfor details. This adds an image size named ‘feature’ with a fixed size of 600×250.

add_image_size('feature', 600, 250, true);

Remove Post Info

remove_action('genesis_before_post_content', 'genesis_post_info');

Modify Post Info
Shortcode Reference

Remove Post Meta

remove_action('genesis_after_post_content', 'genesis_post_meta');

Modify Post Meta

Change Excerpt More text […]

Remove Footer

remove_action('genesis_footer','genesis_do_footer');

Remove Footer and Footer Markup

(thanks Paul de Wouters)

Customize the Search Form text

Customize the Search Button text

Remove Breadcrumbs

remove_action('genesis_before_loop', 'genesis_do_breadcrumbs');

Remove Home from Breadcrumbs
add_filter('genesis_home_crumb', '__return_false');

Customize the Breadcrumb
Full list of arguments here.

Customize the Site Title (in #header)
This is useful if you want to use the default site title (Settings > Title) but style different elements of it differently. This specific code searches for “of” in the site title, and changes it to <em>of</em>.

Remove the Post Title

remove_action('genesis_post_title','genesis_do_post_title');

Display Description of Menu Items
To add a description to a menu item, go to Appearances > Menus. At the top right click “Screen Options”, then check “Description”. Now you can click the dropdown arrow next to menu items and add a description. The below code will make it visible on the site. Here’s another, more detailed approach.

Register a Sidebar

Unregister a Sidebar

unregister_sidebar('sidebar-alt');

Customize Read More Link

CSS – Images scale to content area (useful for Responsive Design)