DMG Read More

A WordPress plugin that provides a Gutenberg block and WP-CLI command for inserting a styled "Read More" link to any published post.

Requirements

• WordPress 6.3+
• PHP 8.1+

Installation

Via Composer

This package is not published on Packagist. Add the GitHub repository as a VCS source in your project's composer.json first, then require the package as normal.

If you fork this repository, update the url below to point at your fork.

{
    "repositories": [
        {
            "type": "vcs",
            "url": "https://github.com/willhowat/dmg-read-more"
        }
    ]
}

composer require dmg/read-more

Manual

Download or clone this repository into wp-content/plugins/dmg-read-more/.

Usage

Block

Search for DMG Read More in the block inserter. Use the sidebar panel to search for and select any published post. The block renders a <p class="dmg-read-more"> element containing an anchor.

Styling

The block comes with minimal styling to ensure a working out of the box experience. This is intentionally scoped with 0 specificity to allow for easy theme overriding as required.

Block supports

The block exposes the following supports, controllable via the editor's block settings panel or theme.json:

Support	Options
Colour	Text, background, link
Typography	Font size
Spacing	Padding, margin
Alignment	Left, centre, right, wide, full

Theme authors can disable individual supports via theme.json to match their design system:

{
    "version": 3,
    "settings": {
        "blocks": {
            "dmg/read-more": {
                "color": {
                    "background": false
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

WP-CLI

The WP-CLI commands use a dedicated index table for performance at scale. The table must be created and seeded before search can be used.

First-time setup

wp dmg-read-more migrate   # create the index table
wp dmg-read-more backfill  # seed from existing posts

Once the index is in place it is maintained automatically as posts are saved or deleted.

Search

Find published posts containing the block within a date range:

# Last 30 days (default)
wp dmg-read-more search

# Specific date range (ISO 8601)
wp dmg-read-more search --date-after=2024-01-01 --date-before=2024-06-01

# Restrict to specific post types
wp dmg-read-more search --post-type=post,page

# Combine filters
wp dmg-read-more search --date-after=2024-01-01 --post-type=post

# Output only the count (useful for monitoring)
wp dmg-read-more search --format=count

Matching post IDs are written to STDOUT, one per line. --format=count outputs only the total as a bare number, suitable for piping.

Resyncing after deactivation

If the plugin is deactivated and posts are edited during that period, the index may become stale. Run sync to reconcile:

wp dmg-read-more sync

This removes entries for posts that no longer contain the block (or are no longer published) and adds entries for any posts that were missed.

Filters

dmg_read_more_allowed_in_post_types — restrict which post types the block can be inserted into. When this returns a non-empty array the block is hidden from the inserter on all other post types:

add_filter( 'dmg_read_more_allowed_in_post_types', fn() => [ 'post', 'case_study' ] );

dmg_read_more_post_types — restrict which post types appear in the block's search results (the post being linked to). Available in PHP and JavaScript:

add_filter( 'dmg_read_more_post_types', fn() => [ 'post' ] );

wp.hooks.addFilter(
    'dmg.readMore.postTypes',
    'my-plugin/restrict-post-types',
    () => [ 'post' ]
);

dmg_read_more_prefix — override the "Read More:" label. Available in PHP (frontend) and JavaScript (editor preview):

add_filter( 'dmg_read_more_prefix', fn() => 'Continue reading:' );

wp.hooks.addFilter(
    'dmg_read_more_prefix',
    'my-plugin/custom-prefix',
    () => 'Continue reading:'
);

Development

Node 24 and Composer are required.

npm install
npm run build       # production build → build/
npm run start       # development watch mode
npm run lint:js       # ESLint
npm run lint:js:fix   # ESLint auto-fix
npm run lint:css      # Stylelint
npm run lint:css:fix  # Stylelint auto-fix
npm run type-check    # TypeScript
npm run format        # Prettier
npm run make-pot      # Generate .pot translation file

composer install
composer lint       # PHPCS (WordPress Coding Standards)
composer lint:fix   # PHPCBF auto-fix
composer test       # PHPUnit

Build output

The build/ directory is committed to this repository so the plugin works when installed directly via Composer or manual download without a separate build step.

In a production distribution workflow this would instead be generated by a CI release pipeline on tag push, keeping the main branch free of generated files.

Licence

GPL-2.0-or-later — see LICENSE.