WordPress, feeds and titles colinwalker.blog

@colinwalker I have a note in my book to link to your title plugin. Decided not to include it in the "getting started" section just because I think it's more approachable if people start with the basics. WordPress config can quickly get overwhelming, but good for people who are ready for it.

@manton I completely agree. If keeping things as simple as possible works then that’s obviously the way to go. Still, it’s good to have options should we need them 😉 Really looking forward to the book.

@colinwalker Nice article. I found a very good solution for me by simply turning on "Excerpt View" in the screen options. It still shows the "(no title)" but also the summary of the post. It doesn't though help in the "add link" search when composing a post. But that's at least no problem for me.

@svenseebeck That's a really good idea. Can't believe I didn't know that was there. 😮

@svenseebeck @colinwalker I didn't realize there were options for that screen, either! Some excerpts leave a bit to be desired, though….

I keep meaning to file an issue in the WP Trac about making titleless posts appear distinct from each other on the posts screen, given WP supports stuff like status post format and the P2 theme (which Automattic uses heavily, IIRC)—something like "(no title) [post 1234]"…

@colinwalker Indeed. It's a bit hidden. I also found it only by accident, while I was looking for a plug-in to do just that :-)

@manton Just a thought: is it worth mentioning pinging micro.og from WP in the Setting up WordPress guide? People are going to wonder early on if posts don’t come through quickly.

@colinwalker Maybe. I left it out because it's optional and is mentioned on the Feeds help page. I also have a chapter of my book about real-time feeds that I may try to bring into the help site in some form.

@manton @colinwalker I think it would be worth mentioning. It took me a while to figure out why it was taking my posts so long to update on micro.blog the other night. I eventually found the feeds page though!

@clreed87 @manton Even if it's only just a pointer to the Feeds page.

@clreed87 Cool, thanks for the feedback. As I'm reviewing the documentation, it is not very prominently linked. Should be on the WebSub page and maybe other places.

@colinwalker Random WordPress 'code' question. When you are checking the post format, I've been using:

has_post_format( 'status' )

And it looks like you use:

get_post_format()

Is one better than the other?

@clreed87 They’re both fine just different syntax. I use other get functions elsewhere so it’s just a consistency thing.

@colinwalker Does your ‘pregetpost’ function to auto date Micro.blog posts work from the Micro.blog app? Mine works from ‘wp-admin’ but still shows as ‘(no title)’ when posting from the app.

@clreed87 Good question. I don’t post from the app so never tested that.

@clreed87 Just worked for me. You’re talking about add_filter( 'title_save_pre', 'filter_title_save_pre', 10, 1 ); yeah?

@colinwalker @clreed87 It's been working fine for me from the app, too. I wonder what's different?

@smokey @colinwalker Yep—With that filter from wp-admin it works fine. But when I post from the app I still get no title. Adjusted yours slightly--so I'll try to debug:

//* Change post title to date if no title is provided
add_filter( 'title_save_pre', 'minimum_update_blank_title' );
function minimum_update_blank_title( $title ) {
    if ( empty( $title ) ) {
        $title = get_the_date( 'Y-m-d H.i.s' );
        return $title;
    }
    else {
        return $title;
    }
}

@smokey @colinwalker Finally figured it out.

get_the_date()

was the culprit--I'm guessing because there is no post yet to get the date from when created via the app. Changing it to date() seemed to solve it. Thanks for all the help.

@clreed87 That sounds likely. Glad you got it figured out!

@colinwalker This and your other posts & code snippets have been very helpful towards setting up my micro.blog and Wordpress. Many thanks!

@clreed87 Glad you got it sorted.

@solari No problem at all. Happy they helped 👍