How to set default value for 'Alt text' on image upload dialog?

Question

I'm using WP 4.1.1 and trying to create a default value for the 'Alt text' when uploading an image (dropping it straight into post and dialog appears).

I've tried doing this with this hook https://codex.wordpress.org/Plugin_API/Filter_Reference/attachment_fields_to_edit

and while I seem to be able to ADD a new field (it appears on the dialog form), I cannot modify the value of the 'Alt Text' field. So the following does NOT work (but should, according to the docs!). I have tried changing the priority from high to very low too, no difference.

add_filter('attachment_fields_to_edit', 'dpcontent_attachment_fields_to_edit', 999, 2 );

function dpcontent_attachment_fields_to_edit($form_fields, $post) {

    if ( substr( $post->post_mime_type, 0, 5 ) == 'image' ) {        
        _log("DBG: 1 in here ... form_fields=" . arr_to_string($form_fields)); // its empty :-(

        $form_fields['image_alt'] = array(
            'value' => 'Hello world!',
            'label' => __('Alternative Text'),
            'show_in_model' => true
        );
    }

    return $form_fields;
}

Any help with this would be greatly appreciated!

gvanto

Answer 1

Ok, the answer will not be short

At first, You can't change the alt attribute using attachment_fields_to_edit, because you can't modify default fields. To see how this works can be in the source code of get_compat_media_markup.

With attachment_fields_to_edit you can add only additional input fields.

Example:

/**
 * Add custom field for Images
 *
 * @param array   $fields An array of attachment form fields.
 *                field arguments:
 *                    array(
 *                      'show_in_edit'  => (bool)  Show in Edit Screen. Default true,
 *                      'show_in_modal' => (bool)  Show in Modal Screen. Default true,
 *                      'label'         => string  label text,
 *                      'input'         => string  input type: text, textarea, etc or 'html' key with custom input html callback. Default 'text'
 *                      'required'      => (bool)  Input attributte 'required'. Default false,
 *                      'html'          => string  custom input html or callback name,
 *                      'extra_rows'    => array(),
 *                      'helps'         => string  help text,
 *                    )
 * @param WP_Post $post        The WP_Post attachment object.
 */
function add_attachment_fields($fields, $post)
{
  if (substr($post->post_mime_type, 0, 5) == 'image') {
    $meta = wp_get_attachment_metadata($post->ID);
    $fields['meta_credit'] = array(
      'label'       => __('Credit'),
      'input'       => 'text',
      'value'       => $meta['image_meta']['credit'],
      'helps'       => __('Only text. Max length 40 characters'),
      'error_text'  => __('Error credit meta')
    );
  } 
  return $fields;
}
add_filter('attachment_fields_to_edit', 'add_attachment_fields', 10, 2);

For save value, use attachment_fields_to_save:

/**
 * Filters the attachment fields to be saved.
 * @param array $post       An array of post data.
 * @param array $attachment An array of attachment metadata.
 */
function update_attachment_fields($post, $attachment)
{
  if (isset($attachment['meta_credit'])) {
    $credit = $attachment['meta_credit'];
    $meta = wp_get_attachment_metadata($post['ID']);
    if ($credit !== $meta['image_meta']['credit']) {
        $meta['image_meta']['credit'] = $credit;
        wp_update_attachment_metadata($post['ID'], $meta);
    }
  }
  return $post;
}
add_filter('attachment_fields_to_save', 'update_attachment_fields', 10, 2);

---

What to do with the alt attribute? No good idea, although it is not good to keep trash in database, but work:

add_attachment and add_post_meta variant fires once when attachment is added:

add_action('add_attachment', 'add_alt_to_attachment');
function add_alt_to_attachment($post_ID)
{
    add_post_meta($post_ID, '_wp_attachment_image_alt', 'MY TEXT');
}

Fired, when any field change:

function update_alt_field($post, $attachment)
{
  if (empty($attachment['image_alt'])) {
    $image_alt = wp_unslash('My Alt is good');
    $image_alt = wp_strip_all_tags($image_alt, true);
    // Update_meta expects slashed.
    update_post_meta($attachment_id, '_wp_attachment_image_alt', wp_slash( $image_alt));
  }
  return $post;
}
add_filter('attachment_fields_to_save', 'update_alt_field', 10, 2);

And other way - add alt text when image inserting in post:

/**
 * Filter the list of attachment image attributes.
 *
 * @param array            $attrs        Attributes for the image markup.
 * @param WP_Post        $attachment    Image attachment post.
 * @param string|array    $size        Requested size. Image size or array of width and height values
 *                                 (in that order). Default 'thumbnail'.
 * @return array        $attrs        Attributes for the image markup.
 */
function my_images_attr($attrs, $attachment, $size)
{
    if (empty($attrs['alt'])) {
        $attrs['alt']) = 'MY TEXT';
    }
    return $attrs;
}
add_filter('wp_get_attachment_image_attributes', 'my_images_attr', 10, 3);

Answer 2

I found a solution to add a default caption for all new uploaded attachments:

function add_caption_to_attachment($data, $postarr){
  if(empty(trim($data['post_excerpt']))){
    $data['post_excerpt'] = '«<a href="">TITEL</a>» - <a href="">NAME</a>, CC <a href="">XXX</a>';
  }
  return $data;
}
add_filter('wp_insert_attachment_data', 'add_caption_to_attachment');

The solutions proposed by @vralle work well for actual attachment meta data, but caption is not. So I had to find another way, add_attachment hook did not work.