In my article, Question for My Readers – What WordPress Tips Would You Like Me to Write About, Vered asked me a question about how to take the list of archives off of the main page. This is not as easy to do as you would think. I gave her a rough answer in the comments but will be writing a series of articles about archives. Interestingly enough, I am working on an archives issue with a client so it was timely that I was asked about it.
Today’s topic is how to make the archives more attractive and user-friendly with the Thumbnails for Excerpts Plugin. I tend to prefer coding rather than plugin solutions but this plugin provides a simple way to enhance your archives. Take a look at my archives here.
I am using excerpts, which is the default on most themes. Excerpts show the first 55 words of the post. Viewing a chronological list of posts that only contain the first 55 words is not a very useful way to review older content. The Thumbnails for Excerpts Plugin does not resolve the chronological issue but does make the archived post more viewable by pulling the first image from the post and creating a thumbnail of the image. You can see the images in my archives with the excerpts.
