Automatic Read More in Joomla

We've always wanted to be able to set up Joomla to automatically add a "Read More" link for articles in Category Blog or Section Blog Layouts so that the articles would all be the same length and they would line up just as pretty as you please. Google revealed a handful of other people attempting the same thing, but having no solution. So Mango wrote a plugin for it.

By popular request, we have added the following new features in the new Version 1.1 Beta 3:

Thumbnails are linked to the full version of the article.
Portuguese and Spanish language files are included. Thanks to the volunteers who translated these!
FJ Related Articles is tentatively supported.
"Developer mode" feature to assist PHP coders in making Auto Read More compatible with other modules.
Bug where special characters were not displayed correctly has been fixed.
Bug where multiple thumbnails were sometimes not displayed correctly has been fixed.

Features:

Automatically adds "Read more..." link after a configurable number of characters.
Articles with shorter intro text display their intro text only.
Works on the Front Page, Category Blog, or Section Blog.
Will not break HTML or break the article in the middle of a word.
Configurable to ignore specific categories, sections, articles, or the Front Page.
Commented so that you may read through the code and add your own features if you like.

Latest version (1.1 Beta 3): Download Plugin to insert Read More links automatically in Joomla articles

Note: If you already use a different version of Auto Read More, you must uninstall it first.

Old versions: 1.0, 1.1 Beta, 1.1 Beta 2

Feature requests, bug reports, and general comments welcome!

This article was posted on February 7th, 2010 and is filed under Joomla.

Federico Says:
June 27th, 2009 at 7:06 pm

Excellent

Just what I was looking for!
It works perfectly. Thank you very much

Tariq TQ Says:
June 29th, 2009 at 2:25 am

Hi..
Super Sexy Plug in
You know..
With the addition of the image features via lightbox, tags, and Add this button.
I gues no more need to other CCK inside joomla 1.6
Beacause using your plugin enable of creating sexy news and magazines for sports and other fields easy.

I do like it..
I will support it too by all maens.

Emma Says:
July 22nd, 2009 at 1:12 am

Sorry I'm new in joomla and I want to use this plugin. I have installed it but I do not how to use it. Cueck!

Mango Says:
July 22nd, 2009 at 6:40 am

Hey Emma,

From the Extensions menu, click Plugins. Then find "Content - Auto Read More". If there is a red and white X beside it, it's not yet enabled, so click the X to enable it. Once it's enabled you should be able to click "Content - Auto Read More" to configure the plugin. Hope that helps!

lafrance Says:
August 29th, 2009 at 3:03 pm

Excellent thank you so much
this should be in core joomla next version

Ugur Says:
August 29th, 2009 at 4:09 pm

Excellent thank you so much

Mark Says:
August 30th, 2009 at 6:05 am

Any news for the image implement? Nice ; )

Mark Says:
August 30th, 2009 at 6:12 am

ooopss..sorry didn't check the update! NICE JOB!!

Steve Says:
August 30th, 2009 at 8:38 am

Tried copying the php and xml from the beta zip in place of existing files in plugins directory. Totally breaks joomla

Original worked great. New one dont work at all. So pity.

Mango Says:
August 30th, 2009 at 9:01 am

You need to uninstall the old version before installing the new one. However, it's possible that what you did made the problem worse and now it will not automatically uninstall. In that case, do a manual uninstall by removing the Auto Read More row in the #__plugins table, delete the php and xml file, and also the language file from /administrator/language.

Steve Says:
August 30th, 2009 at 9:26 am

So where is this Tidy thing???

Mango Says:
August 30th, 2009 at 9:33 am

Tidy can be installed as a PHP extension. Ask your systems administrator or web hosting company to install it, if you don't already have it. Any decent web host will likely already have it.

Flachzange Says:
September 1st, 2009 at 2:25 am

Thanks for your really nice plugin. Especially the Beta 1.1 is awful.
Unfortunately there are two issues who still need to be solved.
- support for plugins like tabs&slides or the AllVideosPlugin
- Support for languagespecific characters
Thank yu very much much for your work.

Mango Says:
September 1st, 2009 at 4:06 am

Compliment fail

We apologize that the plugin is not designed to be compatible with Tabs & Slides or AllVideos.

Character issue will be fixed asap.

JP Says:
September 4th, 2009 at 11:33 am

this is the error i get after installing it.

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_OBJECT_OPERATOR in /hermes/web01c/b1086/pow.hrg2008/htdocs/plugins/content/AutoReadMore.php on line 30

The original one works great. This is exactly what i need because it includes thumbnail images. If you have a solution to the above error i would love it. If not, keep up the good work because Im so excited about a stable plugin like this. Thanks

Nigcra Says:
September 9th, 2009 at 7:47 am

Hi,

I'm using your plugin since a few minutes and its very great! I searched around the web for a while for a simple solution and now I found it. Do you think that you can extend your plugin so that it's also adding a link on the mod_newsflash module? I'm using that on the front page and the articles a nice but theres always the full one in the newsflash at the bottom.

Crusader Says:
September 11th, 2009 at 4:44 am

Spot on mate, just the ticket. Running the old version and just popped over here to enquire about why the anchor links were missing on my into's and noticed the updated version that doesnt strip html, will upgrade tonight but just wanted to say thanks as this has made my life more than a little easier. Importing articles on a nightly basis via cron jobs from various feeds is so much easier when i dont have to go into them all one by one to add an annoying read more tag.

Probably a stupid question but the "Read More" text, does it come from a language file or is it coded somewhere, i'd like to change it to "click here to continue" as it's been studied that this increases click through rates from about 4% to over 11% on front page articles.

Keep up the good work, and again many thanks, i'll drop by if the uninstall, reinstall goes well or tits up and let you know.

Cheers

Crusader.

Mick Graham Says:
September 13th, 2009 at 11:19 pm

I just installed the Beta and get this error when I go to a page in my website

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_OBJECT_OPERATOR in /home/.sapphire/******/********/dev/plugins/content/AutoReadMore.php on line 30

Im using Joomla 1.5.14

rgds
Mick

Mango Says:
September 14th, 2009 at 4:33 am

JP and Mick: This issue has been tentatively fixed in 1.1Beta2. Please let us know if you are still having the problem.

Jeff Says:
October 12th, 2009 at 11:42 pm

Just playing around with things and trying to use CSS to accomplish the resizing effort. Setup a css class as follows

. thumbnail {
width 50%
height 50%
}

Thanks!
Jeff...

Sashi Says:
December 4th, 2009 at 6:02 am

Thanks a lot for this fantastic plugin. This is the one iam looking for.

modazadoma Says:
December 11th, 2009 at 5:08 am

Joomla really needs that extension. It really show be in core version

Luke Says:
December 13th, 2009 at 9:54 pm

Thankyou thankyou guys,

I read and tried the hacks but they didn't work in my template. This worked perfectly and cemented your status as legends in my book !

joel machado Says:
December 26th, 2009 at 9:38 am

GREAT WORK!!!!, this plugging is a must since joomla lacks the ability to do add read more automatic on to a section blog layout!

I use this plugging with Feed Gator and i could not be any happier, thumbs up!

I like to see for next version of the plugging more control for the Thumbnails things like size and alignment right from the plugging parameters, and a choice to alternate alignment from 1 article to the next.. if there is a way to do this manually i like to know, also if do not mind i will post a link on the joomla.org