Split excerpt into archive_excerpt and overlay_excerpt

[dvhart]

• This is a question about using the theme.
• This is a feature request.
• I believe this to be a bug with the theme.
  • I have updated all gems with bundle update.
  • I have tested locally with bundle exec jekyll build.

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Environment informations

• Minimal Mistakes version: 4.8.1+
• GitHub Pages hosted: yes

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Expected behavior

The "excerpt" is used in at least 2 unique ways:

1. archive summary (archive-single)
   a) archive grid (e.g. related)
   b) recent posts (e.g. home)
2. header overlay (page__hero)

At least in my case, I'm looking for different things for 1 and 2 above, and was looking for a way to kill the excerpt from the header overlay, while keeping it for the archive summary. I didn't find a way, so I ultimately just commented it out of page__hero.

https://dvhart.github.io/2015/04/05/wannabee-it-guy-kid-friendly-networking.html

I think it would be useful to split excerpt into overlay_excerpt and archive_excerpt, both of which default to excerpt, but can be independently overridden. Existing users wouldn't need to change anything as overriding excerpt would apply to both new fields. In my case I would set 'overlay_excerpt: ""' in defaults in my _config.yml, and leave archive_excerpt.

Another option might be to create a boolean for overlay_excerpt which just toggles if the excerpt is displayed in in the overlay header. This would be less flexible, but probably less invasive.

[dvhart]

The site wide boolean solution seems pretty minimally invasive, just the following to page__hero.html:

-      {% if page.excerpt %}
+      {% if page.excerpt and site.overlay_excerpt %}

And adding overlay_excerpt: (true|false) to _config.yml

[dvhart]

If the above is acceptable, I can prepare a PR and update the documentation accordingly at the same time.

[dvhart]

One last thought for now. page.header.overlay_excerpt as a boolean is even better. More flexibility, no more invasive.

[mmistakes]

So to clarify you're looking for a way to disable excerpts when using an image overlay? And not a way to specify different text for overlay excerpt and archive excerpts?

The later is a complexity I'm not sold on. But using a boolean to disable overlay excerpts seems simple enough.

[dvhart]

Yes, for my purposes, the simple boolean is plenty. I'm currently using 'page.header.overlay_excerpt: false' and added that to the conditional in page__hero.html. Adding it to the default in the theme _config.yml to true I think would complete the feature and maintain existing behavior. If you're OK with this, I'll prepare the patch, docs, and PR.