Change “Enter Title Here” help text on a custom post type

Question

I have a custom post type created for a directory that will end up being sorted alphabetically. I will be sorting the posts in alphabetical order by title, so I want to make sure that the Title is entered as last name/first name. Is there a way to change that default help text -- "Enter Title Here" -- in my custom post to something else?

Answer 1

There is no way to customize that string explicitly. But it is passed through translation function and so is easy to filter.

Try something like this (don't forget to change to your post type):

add_filter('gettext','custom_enter_title');

function custom_enter_title( $input ) {

    global $post_type;

    if( is_admin() && 'Enter title here' == $input && 'your_post_type' == $post_type )
        return 'Enter Last Name, Followed by First Name';

    return $input;
}

Answer 2

Take a look in wp-admin/edit-form-advanced.php at line 246 ^{(line 329, as of WP3.5)}

<label class="screen-reader-text" id="title-prompt-text" for="title">
<?php echo apply_filters( 'enter_title_here', __( 'Enter title here' ), $post ); ?>
</label>

Answer 3

I know I'm a little late to the party here, but I'd like to add that there is also dedicated filter for this: enter_title_here

A working example:

add_filter( 'enter_title_here', 'custom_enter_title' );

function custom_enter_title( $input ) {
    global $post_type;

    if ( is_admin() && 'YOUR_CUSTOM_POST_TYPE' == $post_type )
        return __( 'Enter your Name here', 'your_textdomain' );

    return $input;
}

Don't forget to change YOUR_CUSTOM_POST_TYPE to your custom post type and your textdomain if required.

Answer 4

The best way to get the title format you want is to remove the title completely and add two custom fields for the name parts with proper labels. When the post is saved, create the title per PHP.