Opened 8 years ago
Last modified 7 years ago
#37535 new enhancement
Outputting Post Type Description on admin edit screen
Reported by: | simonrcodrington | Owned by: | |
---|---|---|---|
Milestone: | Future Release | Priority: | normal |
Severity: | normal | Version: | 4.6 |
Component: | Posts, Post Types | Keywords: | has-patch has-ui-feedback has-screenshots |
Focuses: | ui, administration | Cc: |
Description
When registering a custom post type you canspecify the description as part of the arguments you pass into register_post_type
. I would expect that somewhere in the back-end of WP this description would be shown, however it isn't.
It would be great if we could output the description right below the title of the post type when viewing the entries table (as I've done below)
I've updated edit.php
inside of wp-admin
and added the following code after the main H1 tag
<?php //output description if set if($post_type_object->description){ echo '<p class="description">'; echo esc_html( $post_type_object->description); echo '</p>'; }?>
It's a pretty small update but its pretty useful for clients so that know what this admin edit screen is for. I use them for outlining what type of content will be added here.
If the content type doesn't have a description nothing is outputted.
I can submit a pull request since it's a fairly straightforward change.
Cheers
Simon
Attachments (4)
Change History (21)
#1
@
8 years ago
- Component changed from Administration to Posts, Post Types
- Focuses ui administration added
@
8 years ago
I like this idea, would be improve UX for content editors (esp as there is no hook for developers to insert it, so a patch to core is the only way to achieve this)
#2
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8 years ago
Exactly what I was thinking @Jonnyauk . I couldn't see any other way to output content / helpful info in that place besides editing the file directly. I also don't know where the 'Description' is ever used (or why it exists if it's never used?)
It would be great to either display the description there or to add a hook so theme / plugin devs can add content there if they require.
Cheers
#3
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8 years ago
@simonrcodrington no problem ;) Yes, I think this would be really useful from a UX point of view. By default the description is not used by default in themes generally, but when I'm building custom themes I sometimes do bring it onto the top of custom post archives ;)
#5
follow-up:
↓ 7
@
8 years ago
- Keywords ui-feedback added
I like the idea of being able to display this information in the admin in some useful way. I wonder if there are other use cases where adding an action hook here would be preferable?
#7
in reply to:
↑ 5
;
follow-up:
↓ 8
@
8 years ago
Immediate thoughts--
Like this idea.
Top of mind concerns would be:
- Current use cases for the description field -- as you stated, if it's not being output in the admin, what are the current expections/widest uses for the field?
- Is there content not suitable for display that developers are storing in them, since there's no expectation of admin output?
#8
in reply to:
↑ 7
@
8 years ago
Hey Mike, thanks for having a look at this ticket.
The way I see the description
arg being useful when registering post types is by providing useful info about what this post type does / can do. For example on staff content types I've dynamically outputted text on the admin posts pages (via JS) that's helpful to the site admins / users, letting them know what this content type is and how to manage it.
From what I see, I don't think the description is used anywhere, which is a real waste as it should live on the posts admin page as that's where most people will spend their time managing content..
In regards to the field. When you pass your description as an argument you can only pass in text. I'm not sure what would happen if you pass in a string that's actually a HTML block. When it's being outputted in my proposed code above I've ran it through esc_html
but it could easily be adjusted on the output side (or via a filter?)
It would be great to get more feedback on this. It's a small change, but overall would make explaining to people what all these content types do easier.
Replying to mikeschroder:
Immediate thoughts--
Like this idea.
Top of mind concerns would be:
- Current use cases for the description field -- as you stated, if it's not being output in the admin, what are the current expections/widest uses for the field?
- Is there content not suitable for display that developers are storing in them, since there's no expectation of admin output?
This ticket was mentioned in Slack in #design by karmatosed. View the logs.
7 years ago
#10
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7 years ago
- Keywords has-ui-feedback added; ui-feedback removed
This design seems to work and fit patterns. I will remove the ui-feedback as a result.
#11
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7 years ago
Hey guys
Does this seem like a good fit for an upcoming version? I'd be keen on getting this into core at some point so we can start setting post type descriptions.
Cheers
#12
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7 years ago
- Milestone changed from Awaiting Review to 4.9
Worth noting that post type descriptions will now be displayed on the front end when using get_the_archive_description()
, see #38487.
Image of the admin edit screen