Changing table text label color + location?

Hello @rnformatics,

Welcome to the support forum! Thanks for asking these very good questions:

Where do I change the “References” text label color for the table header?

• Often the aim is for the label to take the theme’s heading color. While defaulting to be a paragraph element, the label may be set to be e.g. a level-2 heading, level-3 heading. This setting is under the General settings tab.
• Sadly many color settings are still missing from the options page, but under the Custom CSS tab there is a textarea with a list of recommended CSS selectors. The label text would be the span with class .footnote_reference_container_label, and its color may be changed adding this rule:

  
  .footnote_reference_container_label {
      color: #000000;
  }
  

  The Google color picker https://www.google.com/search?q=color+picker may help determine the color’s hex code.

is it possible to have the footnotes show at the top of/above the footer instead of the bottom?

Yes. With the Footnotes plugin this requires always using a child theme and moving the wp_footer() function call from the bottom to the top of the footer. I cannot speak for the theme your website will be using but in Twenty Twenty-One, wp_footer() is called on line?71 in footer.php https://themes.trac.www.ads-software.com/browser/twentytwentyone/1.4/footer.php#L71 and needs to be moved up, probably just after the footer’s start tag https://themes.trac.www.ads-software.com/browser/twentytwentyone/1.4/footer.php#L21, i.e. to line?22.

The most straightforward way for a plugin to output something “in” the footer is hooking it on the wp_footer hook fired by the wp_footer() function https://developer.www.ads-software.com/reference/functions/wp_footer/ This hook is intended to “Print[] scripts or data before the closing body tag on the front end”, i.e. after the footer. Since these scripts are invisible, and that position is only used for deferred scripts, it doesn’t matter where exactly the output is placed. But for the Footnotes reference container it does.

For what it’s worth, I apologize for not adding this information right next to the Reference container position setting, while I was on it, and even learned about this use case, on a production website! Its webmaster disclosed that he uses a child theme.

So should you. To switch to a child theme I will recommend using a plugin to generate a child theme from an installed theme. (I now always use the free Generate Child Theme by Catch Plugins. The only thing that you need to pay attention to is to never start your child theme’s name with a digit, or your website will crash like this https://www.ads-software.com/support/topic/my-website-fall-down-after-this-plugin/ That is because the theme name is used to derive a function name, and like in other languages, the first character in a PHP function name is in ranges a-z or A-Z or underscore.)

Hope this helps. Please let us know how it works out and be sure to stay in touch should you require any further support.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 8 months ago by pewgeuges.
• This reply was modified 3 years, 8 months ago by pewgeuges.

Thanks for the speedy and detailed response!

I’m a bit new to WordPress, but have some experience with older php forum software like vBulletin and phpBB, but it’s been several years.

I’m definitely behind the curve on some of the CSS stuff, but it seems to make sense.

I’ll look through the above information.

Thanks again!

Thank you for your feedback. No worries, no problem at all. I’ll be more than happy if it effectively works for you, considering that many settings are still missing from Footnotes’ “dashboard”—while I shouldn’t have added the very first checkbox, on the other hand.

Simplicity is still wanted. For instance it would translate into packing more useful settings and more vital information into the options page.

Best of luck with using the plugin as it is!