excerpt stuff?

Maybe you need some excerpt related plugin(s). Take a look and search the Extend > Plugins section.

looked already I don’t see any that will do what I want

This one always worked for me:
https://guff.szub.net/2005/02/26/the_excerpt-reloaded/

nope I don’t even get what its suppose to do all I want is for a summary to be on the front page for long posts and a read on link. I don’t want to use the “more” tag because it shows your teaser / summary in the actual post but the excerpt doesn’t

in fact it just broke my blog and made me have to remove it nice plugin >:(

the excerpt question i can’t answer. but the read more image:
<a href="<php the_permalink()?>" ><img src="path of your read more image file"/></a>

I know how to do that, sigh I created this
<?php?if (!empty($post->post_excerpt))?{the_excerpt(); }?else?{ the_content(); }??>?
statement but it doesn’t work it gives me this error
Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_STRING in domains/alexrogahn.com/html/wp-content/themes/AlexRogahnTheme/index.php on line 25

managed to make it work

<?php if(!empty($post->post_excerpt)) {
     the_excerpt();
 } else {
     the_content();
 } ?>

but I only want the read on link when it displays the excerpt once I have that I’m all finished ^.^

Then use the code given to you by mks6804 after the_excerpt

nope it doesn’t show up, hmmm this is what I’ve got

<?php if(!empty($post->post_excerpt)) {
     the_excerpt('<a href="<?php get_permalink() ?>">TEST</a>');
 } else {
     the_content();
 } ?>

It won’t work am I doing something wrong?

Yes. It is not a parameter of the_excerpt. It should be AFTER the template tag.

I tried it like this first:

<?php if(!empty($post->post_excerpt)) {
     the_excerpt(); <a href="<?php get_permalink() ?>">TEST</a>
 } else {
     the_content();
 } ?>

it gave me this error

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected '<' in /domains/alexrogahn.com/html/wp-content/themes/AlexRogahnTheme/index.php on line 26

then I tried it like this

<?php if(!empty($post->post_excerpt)) {
     the_excerpt()<a href="<?php get_permalink() ?>">TEST</a>;
 } else {
     the_content();
 } ?>

and It gave me this:

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_STRING in /domains/alexrogahn.com/html/wp-content/themes/AlexRogahnTheme/index.php on line 26

a little help plz?

Because you need to close the PHP before starting HTML code or need to echo.
I am not a coder, so never trust the code I write:

<?php if(!empty($post->post_excerpt)) {
     the_excerpt();
echo "<a href="<?php get_permalink() ?>">TEST</a>";
 } else {
     the_content();
 } ?>

(or something like this)

On the other hand, with a little bit of search you could have find this, too:
https://www.cameraontheroad.com/?p=732

Fixed:

<?php if(!empty($post->post_excerpt)) {
     the_excerpt(); ?>
<a href="<?php get_permalink() ?>">TEST</a>
<?php
 } else {
     the_content();
 } ?>

lol thanks, but this is the code that did what I wanted without any errors or loss of function

<?php if(!empty($post->post_excerpt)) {
     the_excerpt();
echo '<a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark" title="<?php the_title_attribute(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?>Read the rest of this article &raquo;</a>';
 } else {
     the_content();
echo '<a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark" title="<?php the_title_attribute(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?>Goto Post Page &raquo;</a>';
 } ?>

hope this helps anyone wanting the same as me to ??