Change page title from plugin

3 comments

1. There’s a filter for that:

   function wpse_alter_title( $title, $id )
   {
       // $id = $post->ID;
       // alter the title here
       return $title;
   }
   

   If you want to alter the “Protected” and “Private” titles, then you need other filters:

   // Preserve the "%s" - else the title will be removed.
   function wpse_alter_protected_title_format( $title )
   {
       return __( 'Protected: %s' );
   }
   
   function wpse_alter_private_title_format( $title )
   {
       return __( 'Private: %s' );
   }
   

   Last but not least, you must add your filter callbacks early enough.

   function wpse_load_alter_title()
   {
       add_filter( 'the_title', 'wpse_alter_title', 20, 2 );
       add_filter( 'protected_title_format', 'wpse_alter_protected_title_format' );
       add_filter( 'private_title_format', 'wpse_alter_private_title_format' );
   }
   add_action( 'init', 'wpse_load_alter_title' );
   

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2. This depends on the context your page title is being rendered in and how the data is being fed into it.

   Consider the following:

   <h2><?php the_title(); ?></h2>
   

   Solution would involve hooking to the the_title filter and alter it in a breeze.

   How about this?

   <h2><?php echo $post->post_title; ?></h2> // not nice!
   

   And it’s not nice due to the problems with altering it. It’s hard to know how the $post got populated in the first place. Consider:

   foreach( get_posts( ... ) as $post ):
       ...
   

   No place to hook there, at first glance. But it can be done inside the actual posts query. Check out the found_posts filter.

   However, consider the following:

   $post = $wpdb->get_row( "SELECT .... " );
   echo "<h2>$post->post_title</h2>"
   

   That’s insane.

   Point is, depending on your situation there’s probably a good solution. Check the template file, see how the title is being rendered. Fix it to be comfortable or make your plugin work a little harder.

   And you will never ever be able to alter the title via a plugin if mysql_query() is used directly to retrieve the title. Yes, I’ve actually seen this done. Some people go as far as hard code it in the template even. Like front-page.php will contain <h2>Home</h2> and never even use the $post->post_title or ever query the database.

   So, depends on the context and the situation.

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3. I’m building a plugin that is heavily reliant on a front end shortcode. This shortcode is responsible for gathering data which I need to use in the page tab <title> tag. Using a shortcode made it difficult to tie in with the wordpress hooks and filters so I ended up using JavaScript to sort out the page tab title.

   Easily done like this:

   var newTitle = document.createElement("title")
   newTitle.innerText = "New tab title here"
   window.onload = function() {  // only add this to the DOM after it has finished loading
       document.head.prepend(newTitle)
   }
   

   And to be really good I also tidied up the DOM by removing any other <title> elements:

   var newTitle = document.createElement("title")
   newTitle.innerText = "New tab title here"
   window.onload = function() {  // only add this to the DOM after it has finished loading
       let allTitles = document.getElementsByTagName("title"); 
       for (let i=0; i<allTitles.length; i++ ) { // loop through all <title> elements
           allTitles[i].remove() // ... and remove them
       }
       document.head.prepend(newTitle)
   }
   

   I actually echoed this out in PHP which made it simpler to add my PHP variables into the mix:

   <?php
   $newtitle = "New Tab Title Here";
   echo '<script type="text/javascript">
       var newTitle = document.createElement("title")
       newTitle.innerText = "' . $newtitle . '"
       window.onload = function() {
           let allTitles = document.getElementsByTagName("title"); 
           for (let i=0; i<allTitles.length; i++ ) {
               allTitles[i].remove()
           }
           document.head.prepend(newTitle)
       }
       </script>';
   ?>
   

   Hope this helps someone 🙂

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