Issues (Excerpt, Date Format…), Feature Request, Featured Image Fixing

ISSUES & PROBLEMS

1.
FILE: frontier_post_form_standard.php
LINE: $FeatImgLinkHTML = ‘<a title=”
Problem: Text “Select featured image” is not translated but is displayed in modal window
Solution: replace text block before .site_url with code
$FeatImgLinkHTML = ‘<a title=”‘.__(“Select featured image”, “frontier-post”).'” href=”‘

2.
In the Excerpt view of My Posts list the excerpt includes gallery images as well (if the gallery is located in first 2-3 paragraphs of the content I suppose, and excerpts are not defined for the post). This doesn’t look very good. It’s better to display only text in the Excerpt view and allow administrator to choose the number of words for the displayed excerpt.

3.
Date format set in admin area doesn’t effect the one displayed in moderation form and in meta-info in the posts list (but only for the future posts – that are planned at upcoming dates). Screenshot is attached.

4.
Misplaced text string on admin dashboard -> advanced settings.
The line “number of tags to edit on the input form” is displayed before the table. Screenshot is attached.

5.
The list of Draft and Pending posts (separate pages with shortcodes) displays posts of other users for admins and editors.
1-st notice is that this list now requires username in meta-info (along with status, comments, categories and tags). Editors and administrators should be aware of whose article is in the draft and pending list.
2-nd notice is that the phrase “Number of posts already created by you: ” at the bottom of this list is incorrect. I understand that changing the original string is not very good idea. Well, at least for the translation file the more correct variant is “Number of posts at the moment” (for both draft and pending posts).

FEATURE REQUEST

Make Category and Tags fields required in New Post Form (to specify category and tags before post submit). Add a checkbox to admin area.

Could you also add character count after words count (the next line below the editor). It would also be very useful to have an option “limit of characters for the article” to set in admin area, and the corresponding message for the author below the text editor.

ENHANCEMENT IDEA

Featured image setting is not working for the new article. Maybe you know that the modal window displays the homepage instead of media library.
The solution might be as following: generate featured image as the first image in the post automatically. After that the author can change featured image normally. You may also add a notification after the text “Not updated until post is saved” saying “Please, add at least one image to the content” (I did). ?? After saving the post the featured image will appear. Here is the code I used in functions.php to generate featured image from the first in post.

function auto_featured_image() {
    global $post;
    if (!has_post_thumbnail($post->ID) && get_post_type($post->ID) == 'post') {
        $attached_image = get_children( "post_parent=$post->ID&post_type=attachment&post_mime_type=image&numberposts=1" );
      if ($attached_image) {
              foreach ($attached_image as $attachment_id => $attachment) {
                   set_post_thumbnail($post->ID, $attachment_id);
              }
         }
    }
}
// Use it temporary to generate all featured images
/* add_action('the_post', 'auto_featured_image'); */
// Used for new posts
add_action('save_post', 'auto_featured_image');
add_action('draft_to_publish', 'auto_featured_image');
add_action('new_to_publish', 'auto_featured_image');
add_action('pending_to_publish', 'auto_featured_image');
add_action('future_to_publish', 'auto_featured_image');