Blog Settings.

Blog settings and options for the blog & archive listing page include:

• Displaying three featured posts above the main post listing.
• Displaying the full post text, or just an excerpt of teaser text.
• The excerpt length, such as 25 or 50 words.
• Showing or hiding the category names that the blog post is listed in.
• And post pagination.

The image below shows a typical Hestia blog page.

What do the numbers in the image relate to?

1. Featured image.
2. Featured posts.
3. Blog post excerpts with featured image.

1.) The featured image.

You can assign a unique featured image (hero header image) to the blog page. If you don’t apply a unique featured image to the blog page, but you have set a fallback header image via:

Customizer > Header Options > Header Settings.

That fallback header image will display as the blog page featured (hero header) image.

Category page featured images.

You cannot apply a unique featured image to category pages, so the fallback header image displays. Also, note that the category archive listing pages display the category description as well as the category name.

2.) Featured Posts.

The blog listing page has a featured category section at the top. This is optional and you can toggle it on or off via: Customiser > Blog Settings. (See number 2 in the image above.)

If you enable the featured posts option via: Customizer > Blog Settings, you can display three featured posts above the main list of blog posts. You select the three featured posts to display by picking a category. Hestia will then show the three most recent posts from your selected featured category, the featured posts display larger than, and above, the main blog listing.

3.) The main list of blog posts.

(See number 3 in the image above.) You can have a traditional stack of blog posts with the featured images on the left and the teaser text on the right, or you can have a layout where the featured images alternate between left and right. You can also set the teaser text excerpt length, and activate infinite scroll.

The blog settings tab in the customizer.

Customize > Blog Settings.

1. Choose the category to draw the 3 featured posts from.
2. Choose a traditional stack or alternating layout for the main blog listing.
3. Display Blog Categories: shows or hides a text link to the category the featured post comes from.
4. Set the teaser text, excerpt length, and pagination options. Pagination is the number of posts listed on each archive page.

Other options for the blog archive listing page include:

• Showing or hiding the category names that the blog post is listed in.
• Displaying the full post text, or just an excerpt of teaser text.
• The excerpt length, such as 25 or 50 words.
• And post pagination, where for instance, you list ten blog posts on each archive page and then have to click a link to see more posts, or you can enable infinite scroll. Infinite scroll keeps on showing more blog post listings as long as you scroll down the page, until all of the posts have been displayed.