vavroom,
I actually have some custom code doing a very similar thing that’s been on my website for a long time. I decided to simplify it and make it future-compatible with WP 2.1
So basically, I’m your 1-wish WordPress genie.
Here it is:
https://txfx.net/files/wordpress/wp-customized-more-link.phps
Left-click that link, left-click the “download” button, and then upload that PHP file to your /wp-content/plugins/
folder. Activate via WP admin.
You can edit the plugin and edit the $replacement
variable to tweak the HTML. There are two “shortcuts” for you to use. The first one is the %url%
shortcut, which will be the URL of the more link, and the second one is the %linktext%
shortcut which will be the text of the link. In WP 2.1, you can customize this text for each entry, and the plugin will work for customized as well as generic more link texts if you use this %linktext%
shortcut.
Example:
$replacement = '<a href="%url%" class="someclass">%linktext%</a>';
The default is actually the one you wanted, so you don’t even have to change anything.