This is a feature of the Feast Plugin The Simple Category Index lets you create a simple visual index of your categories, by leveraging the Category Featured Images. Just insert the simple_category_index shortcode wherever you want to display a list of categories, like on the homepage and posts. Calling the shortcode with no additional parameters...
News & Updates
Feast Plugin: Modern Mobile Menu
This is a feature of the Feast Plugin The original headers and menus for the themes were designed for a world that no longer exists. They're desktop-first, with compromises made for mobile pageviews. But today's food blogs see around 80% of their pageviews from mobile devices, which deserves a mobile-first solution. The navbar for the...
Feast Plugin: Styling Update
Version 2.8.0 of the Feast Plugin comes with a styling update for the settings page in the admin. Previously, the options were simply listed chronologically as they were released, and listed sequentially: Moving forward, we've organized these customization options by their role, and grouped related-settings. For example, header and navigation options are now together:...
Feast Plugin: Remove Entry-Meta from Post Footer
The Entry-Meta in the post footer displays the "Filed Under:" and "Tagged With:", which clutters up the screen and has low visitor usage. Unfortunately, most sites have excessive category and tag usage, and these pages are thin-content and low-value to visitors. The primary category should be displayed in the breadcrumbs. If relevant, additional categories can...
Use Foodie-Pro-Style Recipe Index with Cook'd Pro
FacetWP is a beautiful setup for the recipe index, but overly complicated, and costs money. It also encourages visitors to stay on a single page that's dynamically updated, rather than jumping into categories and posts. Navigating to categories and posts is preferred because it generates additional pages-per-visit, decreasing bounce rates. Having visitors on the category...
Feast Plugin: Remove link from date in comments
This is a feature of the Feast Plugin Toggle this setting to remove the links from the date in the comment section. On today's talk about "technical things you didn't know or care about", we're diving into those links on the date in the comments. Why remove them Removing the link from the date field...
WP Instagram Widget
This plugin is pretty much dead as of mid August, with Instagram shutting down outside access to its images. Like all social networks, Instagram wants people to interact and view content within its "closed garden", where it can track your actions and show you ads. Alternatives We do not currently have an alternative for this....
Genesis 3.1.0 - GENESIS_PRE_GET_OPTION_FOOTER_TEXT
Genesis 3.1.0 came out August 21 2019. Themes from Feast Design Co. prior to 4.2.0 are not compatible with this change. This update introduces a new method of editing the footer, by going to Customize > Theme Settings > Footer. Unfortunately, it also came with a breaking change to all child themes (and custom child themes)....
Feast Plugin: Disclosures
How do you make sure you've covered off all your disclosures? The FTC, search engines and ad companies require a number of disclosures when money changes hands, and paid content requires clear disclaimers. Among them: cookies ads sponsored content privacy policy Not having these in place can result in a number of different penalties, account...
Why the category pages now display half-width on mobile
All theme versions prior to 4.0.8 displayed categories as full-width on mobile. This lead to needing to scroll excessively to browse through a category. In version 4.0.8, we updated the default category page layout to display only the featured image and the post title, per modern best practices. This makes category pages much easier to...
Yoast 11.4 "name" errors
We've had multiple reports of a "name" error being generated in the recipe page schema in Yoast 11.4 (and 11.5). This appears to be tied to the "Author Archives" being disabled in SEO -> Search Appearance -> Archives. This is the correct setting and you should have author archives disabled (these are worthless pages to...
Why we're dropping the blog page template
The “blog” template is being deprecated and removed from the Genesis framework after June 19th, 2019. It will be disappearing from all Studiopress themes as of version 3.0, and Feast will be following the lead and supporting the move away from "blog" pages (ie. home page pagination). Why? Food blogging is constantly evolving, with features and...
Genesis Schema vs Yoast v.11
Update 2019/08/23 - Genesis 3.1.0 automatically removes its own schema if Yoast is enabled, removing the need to install a plugin when running Genesis 3.1.0 and later. It comes with a number of problems however, and requires version 4.2.0 of the themes (or the Feast Plugin). Yoast v.11 was released this week, along with a...
Feast Plugin: Word Count + Reading Time
This is a feature of the Feast Plugin With the rise of low-quality recipes from high-authority websites that fail to provide adequate instructions (like this one), visitors are increasingly looking for indications that they've landed on recipe sites that provide detailed, quality instructions. You have 3 seconds to make that all-important first impression, and help...
Rethinking the Nav Menu
Last year we updated the header/logo, making it simpler to manage for food bloggers, and correcting some faux-pas, like hidden off-screen text. We've continued listening to feedback and monitoring best practices, and there's another update in the works. Examples logos at top food blogs How have some of the top food/recipe blogs implemented their logos?...
Genesis 2.6.0 Search Menu Disappeared
Studiopress pushed out version 2.6.0 with extensive changes. Among these, they've "deprecated" the search function - among others - which has been around for quite some time. This means that they've changed how the function works, and replaced it with a different function. This means that any site that had the old function installed has...
About Theme Updates
We'll clarify some questions and concerns customers have had about updating themes - why there's been so much recently, and whether or not you should update. The two main points are: Your one-time theme purchase paid for a theme that was set up for the internet at the point in time that you bought it...
What am I paying for with a theme?
We'll outline what the role of a theme is here, and what you've paid for when purchasing a theme. What does my $75 - $125 pay for? When you purchase a theme, you're making a small payment to access theme files that are designed to work for that current version of WordPress (and Genesis) at...
Should I remove content?
The following is a Facebook post from Casey Markee on the topic of deleting vs. re-writing content. We've republished it here with his permission. It's amazing how much incorrect and just plain WRONG information about Google, content, and auditing exists out there. And yet Google has made clear statements that show, clearly, WHY and WHEN...
Feast Design Co. Has Acquired the Cookbook Recipe Plugin!
Not a day goes by that we don't get asked about recipe plugins. This is something that's critical to food blogging and therefore, something we haven't been able to ignore for the past few years. Our team was heavily involved in the creation of a particular plugin - during a period of time where bloggers...
