Is is possible to switch display format after a certain # of posts?

Hi

add this line before the WordPress loop

$i=0;
(Loop ..... )
<?php if (have_posts()) : ?>
   <?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>

add this after the line with while
$i++;

now you can surround the code that displays your thumbnails with

<?php if ($i < 9) { ?>
   ======  display thumbnail =====
<?php } >?

That thumbnail code will only execute on the 1st 8 posts

That works, thanks a ton!

On a side note, what would be the proper way/syntax to turn this into an if/else in case I want to customize the look of the headline-only part a little more?

not clear on what you want to do – explain in more detail

For example, here’s what a normal excerpt looks like:

Title Title Title Title Title Title Title

——— by Author in Category *twitter link*
| |
| thumb | Excerpt Excerpt Excerpt Excerpt Excerpt
| | Excerpt Excerpt Excerpt Excerpt Excerpt
——— ##views | ##comments

Now, by adding your code, I can easily remove parts in the middle. Since the thumbnails are tied to the call to list the categories, that needs to go, but I’d like to reformat the non-thumb posts so it looks more like this:

Title Title Title Title Title Title Title
by Author – ##comments – *twitter*

To do that, I assume I’d basically need to rewrite part of the code, albeit in the simplified form, and it would simply be inside an “else” statement.

oh i see.

yes, you can certainly conditionally display other parts of the post sections.

if you are going to have a few conditional sections its better programming practice to do it like this

<?php  // are we displaying a top post?
   $top_posts = ($i < 9) ? true : false;
   if ($top_posts) { ?>
   ======  display thumbnail =====
<?php } >

Then in the other sections:
if ($top_posts) { do something } ?>

reason: If you use ($i < 9) in a number of places if you later change 9 it to 8 or 11, you have to update every occurrence of 9, and its easy to miss one. If you use $top_posts you only have to update 9 in one place and all the other references update automatically.

That makes sense. Thanks a ton for your help!