Change 'Back To Website' link in wp-login.php

Question

The login form on the page wp-login.php has a link at the bottom that says "Back to website-name" This link always redirects to the home page I would like it to redirect to the page the user has come from.

I imagine this requires a hook added to functions.php but I'm not sure how and could not find anything while searching.

Any ideas?

Answer 1

You can achieve that using Javascript and login_footer action hook to change the href attribute of the Back to link:

<?php

add_action('login_footer', 'ad_login_footer');

function ad_login_footer() {
    $ref = wp_get_referer();
    if ($ref) :
?>
<script type="text/javascript">
    jQuery(document).ready(function($){
        $("p#backtoblog a").attr("href", '<?php echo esc_js($ref); ?>');
    });
</script>
<?php
    endif;
}

?>

Edit:

Thanks to @brasofilo answer, you might need to load jQuery in wp-login.php. It might be loaded already by your theme or another plugin, so you have to check. To load jQuery in order to use the above code:

add_action('login_head', 'jquery_for_wp_login');

function jquery_for_wp_login() {
    wp_print_scripts(array('jquery'));
}

Answer 2

That link don't have any hook that allows modifying it directly.

It has to be done with Javascript, and, as the login page doesn't load jQuery by default ^{(at least, that's what's happening in my test environment)}, I've searched for a pure JS solution.

So, this code hooks into login_footer action and prints a JS script that will change the link to history.go(-1);.

add_action( 'login_footer', 'change_back_to_blog_wpse_82152' );

function change_back_to_blog_wpse_82152()
{
    ?>
    <script type="text/javascript">
        function init() {
          // quit if this function has already been called
          if (arguments.callee.done) return;

          // flag this function so we don't do the same thing twice
          arguments.callee.done = true;

          // kill the timer
          if (_timer) clearInterval(_timer);

          // CHANGE THE LINK
          document.
              getElementById('backtoblog').
              getElementsByTagName('a')[0].
              href = 'javascript:history.go(-1);';
        };

        /* for Mozilla/Opera9 */
        if (document.addEventListener) {
          document.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded", init, false);
        }

        /* for Internet Explorer */
        /*@cc_on @*/
        /*@if (@_win32)
          document.write("<script id=__ie_onload defer src=javascript:void(0)><\/script>");
          var script = document.getElementById("__ie_onload");
          script.onreadystatechange = function() {
            if (this.readyState == "complete") {
              init(); // call the onload handler
            }
          };
        /*@end @*/

        /* for Safari */
        if (/WebKit/i.test(navigator.userAgent)) { // sniff
          var _timer = setInterval(function() {
            if (/loaded|complete/.test(document.readyState)) {
              init(); // call the onload handler
            }
          }, 10);
        }

        /* for other browsers */
        window.onload = init;
    </script>
    <?php
}

Answer 3

If you're looking for a PHP solution, I'd go for this:

• There is no specific hook/action/filter you can make use of for that link.
• However, there is the general home_url filter in action on that login page.

What you can do is to take a fingerprint of hook functions that are called on that page, check the requested page and create a conditional filtering that is filtering the home_url value only in this specific scenario.

Wrap it up nicely in a plugin of it's own and keep it in the must-use plugin folder for example. Prevents you from hacking core (e.g. if you're not using any version control).

Otherwise if you're under git, just branch out, add a filter your own for that link, introduce the plugin and keep current when you need to (less hassles).