Auto generate custom post title

Question

I have a code that is driving me very crazy and frustrated, I wonder if there will be any help for a newbie like me. There where solutions for something like it before but they are not enough.

I want to be able to auto generate custom post titles with the author first name, last name, a random number and current date. The problem is, it works only when I press publish. But not when I save as draft without publishing finally. I want to be able to generate on draft and when publish it will still maintain the generated title instead of updating each time.

my code is here:

function set_interview_title( $value, $post_id ) {


$label = 'INTERVIEW';

$date = date("Ymd");
$date =  date("Ymd", strtotime($date));

$uniqueid_length = 8; 
$uniqueid = crypt(uniqid(rand(),1)); 
$uniqueid = strip_tags(stripslashes($uniqueid)); 
$uniqueid = str_replace(".","",$uniqueid); 
$uniqueid = strrev(str_replace("/","",$uniqueid)); 
$uniqueid = substr($uniqueid,0,$uniqueid_length);
$uniqueid = strtoupper($uniqueid);
if($value['post_type'] == 'interviews') {
  if( ( 'publish' == $_POST['post_status'] ) && ( 'publish' == $_POST['original_post_status'] ) ) {
return;
  }
if( ( 'publish' == $_POST['post_status'] ) && ( 'publish' != $_POST['original_post_status'] ) ) {
$title = $label . ' - ' . $uniqueid . '-' . $date;
$post_slug = sanitize_title_with_dashes ($title,'','save');
$post_slugsan = sanitize_title($post_slug);
$value['post_title'] = $title;
$value['post_name'] = $post_slugsan;
  }
  if( ( 'draft' == $_POST['post_status'] ) || ( 'pending' == $_POST['post_status'] ) ) {
      $title = $label . ' - ' . $uniqueid . '-' . $date;
$post_slug = sanitize_title_with_dashes ($title,'','save');
$post_slugsan = sanitize_title($post_slug);
$value['post_title'] = $title;
$value['post_name'] = $post_slugsan;
}
} return $value;
}
add_filter( 'wp_insert_post_data' , 'set_interview_title' , '10', 2 );

Thanks

Answer 1

Something like this should do the trick using JS to set the title on initial load of a new post. You will not need to differentiate between publish/draft etc. and you can let WordPress sanitize.

function set_post_title( $post ) {
    global $current_user;

    if( get_post_type() != 'interviews' || $post->post_status != 'auto-draft' )
        return;

    $uniqueid_length = 8; 
    $uniqueid = crypt(uniqid(rand(),1)); 
    $uniqueid = strip_tags(stripslashes($uniqueid)); 
    $uniqueid = str_replace(".","",$uniqueid); 
    $uniqueid = strrev(str_replace("/","",$uniqueid)); 
    $uniqueid = substr($uniqueid,0,$uniqueid_length);
    $uniqueid = strtoupper($uniqueid);

    $title = 'INTERVIEW: ' . $current_user->first_name . ' ' . $current_user->last_name . ' - ' . $uniqueid . ' - ' . date( 'Ymd' );

    ?>
    <script type="text/javascript">
    jQuery(document).ready(function($) {
        $("#title").val("<?php echo $title; ?>");
        $("#title").prop("readonly", true); // Don't allow author/editor to adjust the title
    });
    </script>
    <?php
} // set_post_title
add_action( 'edit_form_after_title', 'set_post_title' ); // Set the post title for Custom posts