Remove title attributes from author link functions

[sabernhardt]

Related: #24766 and #26559

#26559 retained some title attributes because the "Posts by author" and "Visit author's website" tooltips still had a small additional value for anyone who could access them. (The important information was already in the visible link text.)

Discussion on #24766 started to reconsider either removing the title attributes or changing them.

@audrasjb:

Shouldn't we just replace the title attribute with aria-label?

@joedolson:

This should also consider a text order change. For screen reader users, the unique information should go first: 'website: author', 'posts: author'; but for voice command, the visible information should go first: 'author: website', 'author: posts'.

@alh0319 suggested removing the attributes in a ​spreadsheet, and @adnanlimdi had made a patch like that.

More than 70 ​themes in the directory use at least two of the three functions. The output might require some distinction between the author's website link (get_the_author_link()) and the author's post archives page (get_the_author_posts_link() and wp_list_authors()).

Alternatively, functions could add a parameter that defaults to the current title but allows removing it.

Option 1: Remove title attributes, and update unit tests.

Props adnanlimdi

Trac 62835

[joedolson]

I still think that we need to be able to differentiate between the two different links; otherwise we're making an existing accessibility issue worse, by having links to two different resources with the same text.

Option 2:

• Removes 'Posts by %s' title attributes from get_the_author_posts_link(), the_author_posts_link() and wp_list_authors().
• Creates a new $use_title_attr parameter for website links in get_the_author_link() and the_author_link().

By default, this would keep a distinction between links from get_the_author_link() functions and the post archive links, if they are on the same page.

Like option 1, it would also remove Core's 'Posts by %s' string, which at least ​18 plugins and ​one recently unlisted theme have used.

Trac 62835

Option 3:
Creates a new $use_title_attr argument for each of the author link functions.

By default, this should not change the output of these functions.

Trac 62835

The function the_author_posts_link() deprecated an `$idmode` parameter. If that parameter needs to remain deprecated and unused, I could undo the changes to that function in this PR. Then anyone who wants to remove the title attribute would use
echo get_the_author_posts_link( false );

[audrasjb]

Personally, I'd go with Option 2 (PR 8182). Option 3 (PR 8183) looks way overkill to me :)

Option 1 would not distinguish between similar links, so I'm closing the first PR.

[joedolson]

I think option 2 makes the most sense, as well. I'm not thrilled about still using the title attribute to differentiate between these, since it's such a low priority marker. While it *technically* provides a difference between the links, it'll only be perceivable to a small percentage of users.

But adding an aria-label would mean that the difference is perceivable to all screen reader users, but to no one else, and would cause some problems for voice command.

Given that the best option right now is for authors to not use the_author_link(), so that they can customize the link text, I feel like allowing authors to set the existing title attribute as the link text would be a good fallback.

[sabernhardt]

I feel like allowing authors to set the existing title attribute as the link text would be a good fallback.

I have not yet checked whether this is already possible with PR 8182 (likely using a filter). However, I do not recommend committing these changes late in the beta stage.

[joedolson]

Given that PR 8182 doesn't appear to meet the visible text needs, this isn't quite ready and we ran out of time. Going to move this to 7.0. It really should be doable.

[audrasjb]

As per today's bug scrub:
This ticket was reviewed during cycle 6.8 but we ran out of time to address the changes suggested in comment:12. The ticket was moved to 6.9 then to 7.0.

Let's still give it 10 days and punt it to Future Release before 7.0 beta 1.

Extends option 2, with new parameters for the_author_posts_link filter:

• Removes 'Posts by %s' title attributes from get_the_author_posts_link(), the_author_posts_link() and wp_list_authors().
• Retains Core's 'Posts by %s' string for potential use in the the_author_posts_link hook.
• Creates a new $use_title_attr parameter for website links in get_the_author_link() and the_author_link().

By default, this would keep a distinction between links from get_the_author_link() functions and the post archive links, if they are on the same page.

Trac 62835

Use of AI Tools: none

I was able to replace the author display name with the 'Posts by author' text in the author posts link function. I activated the Hemingway theme to find the output on single posts.

function wptrac_author_posts_link( $link, $author = '', $title = '' ) {
	if ( '' !== $title && '' !== $author ) {
		$link = str_replace(
			'>' . $author . '</a>',
			'>' . esc_html( $title ) . '</a>', 
			$link
		);
	}

	return $link;
}
add_filter( 'the_author_posts_link', 'wptrac_author_posts_link', 10, 3 );

I did not add a comparable change in the author list function because that would be verbose.

[joedolson]

Tested:

• default: the_author_posts_link(); returns author name with no title attribute
• default: the_author_link(); returns author name with title attribute
• the_author_link( false ) returns the author name with no title attribute
• filter works as expected, allowing you to easily replace the name with the title attribute or make other changes.

Confirmed; marking for commit.

[joedolson]

In 61745:

Users: A11y: Improve title attributes in author link functions.

Remove the title attribute from the_author_posts_link() and related functions, retaining text for use in the_author_posts_link filter, and add parameter to disable title attributes in the_author_link().

Default behavior will still differentiate the two links, but adds the option to remove all title attributes.

Props sabernhardt, alh0319, adnanlimdi, audrasjb, joedolson.
Fixes #62835. See #26559.

Closed in https://core.trac.wordpress.org/changeset/61745

Replaced by #11042, which was committed in r61745