Genesis Simple Edits has been one of my favorite plugins for a long time. For any WordPress site using the Genesis Framework, this plugin allowed easy no-code-necessary customization of three things that site owners always want to customize:
- The site footer (commonly used for copyright notices, credits, disclaimers, and contact information, but you can put pretty much anything here)
- The information at the top of a blog post (typically, though not limited to, the author and date, which is why it is sometimes called the post byline; known in WordPress lingo as post info)
- The information at the bottom of a blog post (typically, though not limited to, the category and tags; known in WordPress lingo as post meta)
However, since the release of Genesis 3.1.0 on August 21, 2019, the Genesis Framework itself contains settings to customize these three areas, making the plugin redundant.
In keeping with the rule of “use all the plugins you actually need, and none that you don’t need”, I’d advise discontinuing use of this plugin, and switching to the built-in Genesis settings. Read on for step-by-step instructions for how to do this.
Requirements for using the Genesis Framework settings
You must be using Genesis 3.1 or later to take advantage of these settings. Here’s how to check what version of Genesis you’re using, and what to do if you can’t update past Genesis 2.10.1.
Because Genesis 3.1 requires at least WordPress version 5.0, you should really update to the latest version of WordPress.
How to use the Genesis settings to edit your site footer
Navigate to Genesis –> Theme Settings (you can also get to this same screen by navigating to Appearance –> Customize and clicking “Theme Settings”).
Look for the Footer item near the bottom of the list, and click it. This will open the Footer field.
The Footer field should automatically be filled with the same text you had in the Footer Credits Text field of the Genesis Simple Edits plugin, but you can edit this by typing whatever you want to include in your footer. Plain text and HTML are accepted in this field. There’s also a handy link to some Genesis-specific footer shortcodes. Click the blue “Publish” button to save your changes.
If you don’t see the Footer item between Content Archives and Header/Footer Scripts, you may need to deactivate the Genesis Simple Edits plugin to get it to show up.
If the Footer field is blank instead of containing the footer text that you originally created in Genesis Simple Edits, check which of the plugin’s footer fields you were using (yes, you may need to reactivate the plugin temporarily; this won’t hurt any of the Genesis settings).
Genesis Simple Edits actually contained two footer fields, one called “Footer Credits Text” and one called “Footer Output”. You could choose one or the other but not both.
When you update to Genesis 3.1 or later, the Footer field in the new Genesis theme settings should automatically populate with whatever was in your “Footer Credits Text” field in Genesis Simple Edits. The update will also remove this field completely from the Genesis Simple Edits plugin settings, so you can’t easily go back and forth between the old plugin settings and the new Genesis settings.
The “Footer Output” field in Genesis Simple Edits, however, will be ignored by the new Genesis settings. So if it turns out you were using the “Footer Output” field in Genesis Simple Edits to modify your site footer, just copy the entire contents of that field, go back to Genesis –> Theme Settings –> Footer, and paste everything in the Footer field.
Now you can safely deactivate the Genesis Simple Edits plugin.
How to use the Genesis settings to edit your post byline/post info and post meta
Navigate to Genesis –> Theme Settings (you can also get to this same screen by navigating to Appearance –> Customize and clicking “Theme Settings”).
Look for the Singular Content item near the middle of the list, and click it. This will open two fields labeled “Entry Meta (above content)” and “Entry Meta (below content)”, where you can type whatever you want to include in your footer. Plain text and HTML are accepted in this field. There’s also a handy link to some Genesis-specific post shortcodes. Click the blue “Publish” button to save your changes.
If you don’t see the “Singular Content” item between “Comments and Trackbacks” and “Content Archives”, you may need to deactivate the Genesis Simple Edits plugin to get it to show up.
The two fields in the Singular Content settings should automatically populate with the identically named fields in Genesis Simple Edits. However, unlike the footer settings, these plugin fields aren’t removed when you update to Genesis 3.1, so you can easily switch back and forth between the plugin settings (reactivate the plugin if necessary) and the Genesis theme settings to make sure the new Genesis theme settings match what you previously had set up in the plugin.
Once you are satisfied with the contents of the Footer and Singular Content fields in the Genesis theme settings, you can safely deactivate and delete the Genesis Simple Edits plugin.