Make link generation in wplink.js extendable

[martinsachse]

It should be possible to extend the html that is generated by /wp-includes/js/wplink.js.js in the htmlUpdate-method.

The solution that I am suggesting is the following. Seperate the generation of the opening a-tag (lines 293-300) into its own method e.g.

wpLink = {
  ...
  buildHtml: function(attrs) {
    var html = '<a href="' + attrs.href + '"';

    if ( attrs.target ) {
      html += ' target="' + attrs.target + '"';
    }

    return html + '>';
  }
  ...
}

This would make it possible to extend the generated opening a-tag the following way:

(function() {
  var buildHtml = wpLink.buildHtml;

  wpLink.buildHtml = function() {
    var html = buildHtml.apply(this, arguments);

    html = html.replace('>', ' data-custom-attribute="my-data">');

    return html;
  }
}());

The advantage of this method is that more than one plugin can extend the generation. Current solutions overwrite the complete wplink.js which will not work if more than one plugin try to extend the generation. It is also a problem if anything changes in the wplink.js with an update.

Possible use cases for this change:

• Plugin that extends the link-dialog with a nofollow-option
• Plugin that extends the link-dialog with a select for classnames
• Plugin that lets you configure custom classes for domains. e.g. every link to example.com gets the class example

[martinsachse]

suggested patch

[Otto42]

Agreed, I ran into this same problem.

The htmlUpdate function is currently the main problem here. All the rest of the functions in here can be overridden and the originals called to do their job, but because htmlUpdate both builds the link and inserts it into the textarea, it's not possible to easily modify the resulting link without overriding this whole function. At least, not without using silly self-modifying-code methods.

[iseulde]

wp.html.string could be useful here.

[wonderboymusic]

In 32802:

Add a class method to wpLink, buildHtml(). This will allows devs to duck-punch the implementation.

Props martinsachse.
Fixes #32180.