item_ labels do not work once registered in a post type

[ninetyninew]

Labels starting with prefix item_ from here:

​https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/functions/get_post_type_labels/

Are not used in the dashboard when registering them in a custom post type.

<?php
$labels = array(
        'name'                          => _x( 'Cars', 'Post Type General Name', 'abcde' ),
        'singular_name'                 => _x( 'Car', 'Post Type Singular Name', 'abcde' ),
        'menu_name'                     => __( 'Cars', 'abcde' ),
        'name_admin_bar'                => __( 'Car', 'abcde' ),
        'archives'                      => __( 'Car Archives', 'abcde' ),
        'attributes'                    => __( 'Car Attributes', 'abcde' ),
        'parent_item_colon'             => __( 'Parent Car:', 'abcde' ),
        'all_items'                     => __( 'All Cars', 'abcde' ),
        'add_new_item'                  => __( 'Add New Car', 'abcde' ),
        'add_new'                       => __( 'Add New', 'abcde' ),
        'new_item'                      => __( 'New Car', 'abcde' ),
        'edit_item'                     => __( 'Edit Car', 'abcde' ),
        'update_item'                   => __( 'Update Car', 'abcde' ),
        'view_item'                     => __( 'View Car', 'abcde' ),
        'view_items'                    => __( 'View Cars', 'abcde' ),
        'search_items'                  => __( 'Search Car', 'abcde' ),
        'not_found'                     => __( 'Not found', 'abcde' ),
        'not_found_in_trash'            => __( 'Not found in Trash', 'abcde' ),
        'featured_image'                => __( 'Initial Image', 'abcde' ),
        'set_featured_image'            => __( 'Set initial image', 'abcde' ),
        'remove_featured_image'         => __( 'Remove initial image', 'abcde' ),
        'use_featured_image'            => __( 'Use as initial image', 'abcde' ),
        'insert_into_item'              => __( 'Insert into Car', 'abcde' ),
        'uploaded_to_this_item'         => __( 'Uploaded to this Car', 'abcde' ),
        'items_list'                    => __( 'Cars list', 'abcde' ),
        'items_list_navigation'         => __( 'Cars list navigation', 'abcde' ),
        'filter_items_list'             => __( 'Filter Cars list', 'abcde' ),
        'item_published'                        => __( 'Car published', 'abcde' ),
        'item_published_privately'      => __( 'Car published privately', 'abcde' ),
        'item_reverted_to_draft'        => __( 'Car reverted to draft', 'abcde' ),
        'item_scheduled'                        => __( 'Car scheduled', 'abcde' ),
        'item_updated'                          => __( 'Car updated', 'abcde' ),
);
$capabilities = array(
        'edit_post'          => 'update_core',
        'read_post'          => 'update_core',
        'delete_post'        => 'update_core',
        'edit_posts'         => 'update_core',
        'edit_others_posts'  => 'update_core',
        'delete_posts'       => 'update_core',
        'publish_posts'      => 'update_core',
        'read_private_posts' => 'update_core'
);
$args = array(
        'label'                 => __( 'Car', 'abcde' ),
        'description'           => __( 'Post Type Description', 'abcde' ),
        'labels'                => $labels,
        'supports'              => array( 'title', 'thumbnail' ),
        'hierarchical'          => false,
        'public'                => false,
        'show_ui'               => true,
        'show_in_menu'          => true,
        'menu_position'         => 40,
        'menu_icon'             => 'dashicons-businessman',
        'show_in_admin_bar'     => true,
        'show_in_nav_menus'     => false,
        'can_export'            => true,
        'has_archive'           => false,
        'exclude_from_search'   => true,
        'publicly_queryable'    => false,
        'rewrite'               => false,
        'capabilities'          => $capabilities,
        'show_in_rest'          => false,
);
register_post_type( 'abcde_car', $args );

e.g. on post update the notice is Post updated. Not Car updated.

[SergeyBiryukov]

Hi there, welcome back to WordPress Trac! Thanks for the report.

It should probably be better documented, but item_published and other item_* labels are only used for post types that support block editor:

• 'supports' => array( ..., 'editor' )
• 'show_in_rest' => true

If the post type does not support editor, or only supports classic editor, these labels are indeed not used.

[ninetyninew]

I see, is there any reason why these couldn't be used in that scenario? I often see custom post types which are registered without the block editor support as they contain no content area at all - just meta boxes with fields to attach meta to the post type.

[SergeyBiryukov]

Good point, let's look into using these labels regardless of the post type's editor support.

At a glance, seems like they could be used in wp-admin/edit-form-advanced.php.

[crmb]

Same issue, any news ?

[lopo]

I've been working on this ticket during the Yoast Contributor Day.

It looks like there is a mismatch between the labels used by the Block editor and those used by the Classic editor, making it difficult to map the former to the latter.
In detail:

1. Classic editor has Post restored to revision from %s. which is missing in the Block editor labels
2. Classic editor has Post saved. which is missing in the Block editor labels (though I'm not sure whether it's still used)
3. Classic editor has Post submitted., to be followed by a preview link, while Block editor uses Draft saved (not tied to a post type)
4. Classic editor has Post scheduled for: %s.(%s is the date), while Block editor has just Post scheduled.
5. Classic editor has Post draft updated. while Block editor uses either Draft saved (not tied to a post type) when simply updating or Post reverted to draft. when unpublishing a post
6. Block editor has Post published privately. which is missing in the Classic editor labels
7. Block editor has Post trashed which is missing in the Classic editor labels (though it looks unused at the moment)

Considering all the above, I don't think it's easy to find a solution here, unless we either add Classic editor-oriented labels to the array, or change the behavior of the Classic editor notices (losing useful info in some cases, e.g. when scheduling), or a mix of the two things.
While we can have a few improvements on the Block editor side (Post scheduled for: %s. would be a nice addition), I don't think it's likely to refactor Classic editor to support Block editor labels.

The most immediate way to add custom messages for custom post types is still to hook into post_updated_messages ​https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/hooks/post_updated_messages/ and add items there. In fact, even for block editor-based post types you'd need to hook into bulk_post_updated_messages ​https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/hooks/bulk_post_updated_messages/ to customize the notices in the post list (so you have 1 car moved to the Trash instead of 1 post moved to the Trash).

My proposal then is to close instead of leaving this pending while there is already a documented way to achieve the intended result.