Context WP Post Segmenter

Tested up to: 5.9.1
Tags: posts, bootstrap
Contributors: robertandrews

Description

This plugin makes impactful and semantically useful in-article "card" segments from plain article areas denoted by groups of <h3> crossheads and paragraphs or other elements beneath.

This is an article innovation which builds upon header crossheads, further breaking up posts, making them easier to read than long blocks of text.

Publishers typically break up articles using header "crossheads". However, articles still can feel burdensome to consume, adhering to centuries-old writing modalities.

When presented as bordered segments, the reader's eye can more easily digest the whole article in sequential chunks.

When imbued with <section> tags, these chunks give search engines useful clues about in-article content.

Card creation

The code finds H3 content "segments" in posts and wraps them as follows:

• <section> for semantic structure.
• Bootstrap classes .card and .mb-3 applied to <section>.
• Segment paragraphs contained in new div.card-body, inserted inside section.card.

Segments are identified as followed:

• Begin with <h3>.
• Include subsequent elements.
• Until either the next <h3> or, else, to end of post.

Image transformation

The plugin does one additional thing. Where an image is found immediately following a <h3> element, we move it above the heading, where it is transformed into a Bootstrap card image by means of applying .card-img-top to the img.

This also moves the image, to above the <h3> - even if the author included an image below a <h3> in WordPress. This occurs at the front-end, but not the back-end, for two reasons:

1. Images are semantically correct when placed below the <h3> which precedes them.
2. In Bootstrap .cards, images typically come above titles and .card-body, by means of .card-img-top.

Usage

Your WordPress theme must already be Bootstrap-enabled for .card borders to be displayed. This plugin does not add Bootstrap CSS to your theme.

Add the plugin to WordPress and activate it.

The plugin code makes use of PHP's DOMDocument, which some observers say is limited and frustrating.

You are free to use alternate classes, or to style those used here as you see fit.