Edit Title When Custom Post Type Saves

5 min read Oct 02, 2024

How to Edit the Title When a Custom Post Type Saves in WordPress

Custom post types offer immense flexibility in organizing your WordPress content. But what if you need to manipulate the title of a custom post type upon saving? You might want to:

Add a prefix or suffix to the title. Imagine you're managing a blog with recipes and want each recipe title to start with "Recipe:".
Capitalize the first letter of each word. You might desire all your product titles to follow proper capitalization rules.
Extract specific information from the post content. Perhaps you want to use a specific keyword from the post's body to modify the title.

No matter your specific need, WordPress provides ways to achieve this with a bit of code.

Understanding the Process

The core of the solution involves using the save_post action hook in WordPress. This hook triggers a function whenever a post is saved. Inside this function, you'll grab the post title, apply your desired modifications, and then update the post data.

The Code Example

Here's a basic example of how you can automatically add a prefix to the title of a custom post type called "product":

post_type === 'product' && $post->post_status !== 'auto-draft' ) {
        // Get the current title
        $original_title = $post->post_title;

        // Add the prefix
        $new_title = 'Product: ' . $original_title;

        // Update the post title
        wp_update_post( array(
            'ID'           => $post_id,
            'post_title'   => $new_title,
        ) );
    }
}

Breakdown of the Code

add_action( 'save_post', 'update_product_title', 10, 2 ): This line hooks the function update_product_title to the save_post action. The third argument (10) represents the priority of the hook, and the fourth argument (2) indicates that the function accepts two parameters: the post ID and the post object.
function update_product_title( $post_id, $post ): This defines the function that will execute on post save.
if ( $post->post_type === 'product' && $post->post_status !== 'auto-draft' ): This conditional statement checks if the post type is 'product' and if the post is not an auto-draft. This ensures the code only runs for the correct post type and when a new post is actually being saved.
$original_title = $post->post_title: This line retrieves the original title of the post.
$new_title = 'Product: ' . $original_title: This line constructs the new title by adding the desired prefix ("Product: ") to the original title.
wp_update_post( array( ... ) ): This function updates the post data in the database. The array contains the post ID and the new title.

Further Enhancements

Regular Expressions: For more complex manipulations like capitalization or extracting specific information from the content, you can utilize regular expressions within the update_product_title function.
Filtering Title: Instead of directly updating the post title, you can use the pre_post_title filter. This allows you to modify the title before it's saved to the database.

Conclusion

Editing the title when a custom post type saves empowers you to tailor your content organization to your unique needs. This technique opens doors to automating title formatting, injecting valuable data, and creating a consistent experience for your website users. Remember to always test your code thoroughly before implementing it on a live website.