[Plugin: Collision Testimonials] Widget character length and/or array of ID's

I would like this too — I’m interested in limiting down the characters similar to the wordpress excerpt() function — having a ‘read more’ appear, etc.

However, I’m not using the widget, I’m coding this straight into a template. So having the functionality, something like:

<?php collision_testimonials(excerpt="75",$id="4"); ?>

That would be pretty cool.

OK, I just updated the plugin to truncate my customer quote. I didn’t add in all the fancy shmancy code like I wrote above in order to customize it, as apparently there is a new version of the plugin coming out very soon, and that would be a waste of time on my part.

However, for anyone who wishes to make these updates, here’s what I did:

• In the wp-admin, I clicked on the editor link under Plugins
• I selected Collision Testimonials as the plugin from the drop down
• I selected the first file: collision-testimonials/collision-testimonials.php
• I added the following function at line 259, above the // Main Function Code, to be included on themes; MAKE SURE TO EDIT THE HREF TO YOUR SITE!!!:

  function shorten ($str, $len)
  {
      if (strlen($str) > $len)
      {
          return substr( $str, 0, strrpos( substr( $str, 0, $len), ' ' ) ) . '... <a href="https://www.yoursite.com/path/to/testimonials/">[read more]</a>';
      }
  	else
      {
          return $str;
      }
  }

• I added code to shorten the $quote variable in two places. With the shorten function code added above, these were approximately lines 304 and 341. Look for the following code
  $quote = stripslashes($data['quote']);
  and add the following on a new line below:
  $quote= shorten($quote,600);
  — the 600 is the character limit after which the ‘…[read more]’ link appears. Set this to whatever you need it to be.
• I think the widget will wind up grabbing the shortened quote, it looks like it runs that function. I don’t know, though, and I don’t plan on using the widget, so you’re on your own there.