Automatic post title from custom fields

• Ian

• October 14, 2013 at 8:51 pm

Hi Guys,

I would like to automatically create the title of a POST from two Custom Fields when creating a new POST. The fields are populated via acf/load_value

EG:

<input type=”text” name=”firstname” id=”firstname” value=”Fred”>
<input type=”text” name=”lastname” id=”lastname” value=”Bloggs”>

The title of the new page would be: Fred Bloggs

Thanks for you help, Ian.

• Ian

• October 14, 2013 at 10:48 pm

OK, so this works on UPDATE but not on PUBLISH when the initial post is created:

function my_function( $value ) {
    if ( empty( $value ) ) :
        return get_field( "firstname" ) .  get_field( "lastname" );
    endif;
    return $value;
}
add_filter('title_save_pre', 'my_function');

Any ideas anyone?

• Elliot

• October 15, 2013 at 4:03 pm

Hi @Ian

That is because your filter runs BEFORE ACF has saved any postmeta data.

Instead of using get_field( "firstname" ), you will need to find the value from the $_POST array. Please note that all data is posted via it’s field key, not field name.

You can learn more about this in the docs.

Thanks
E

• Ian

• October 15, 2013 at 6:54 pm

Thanks Elliot, that make a lot of sense… I’m new to backend development so I was wondering if you could point me in the right direction for using the $_POST array and field key?

I’ve tried the following code without success:

function my_function( $value ) {
    if ( empty( $value ) ) :
        return $_POST['field_5252ea93ea1f6'] .  $_POST['field_5252aeaf0a86b'];
    endif;
    return $value;
}
add_filter('title_save_pre', 'my_function');

Am I going off in the completely wrong direction?

Thanks, Ian.

• Ian

• October 16, 2013 at 8:11 am

Hi Elliot, I have the answer:

function my_function( $value ) {
    if ( empty( $value ) ) :
	$value = $_POST['fields']['field_5252ea93ea1f6'] . $_POST['fields']['field_5252aeaf0a86b'];
        return $value;
    endif;
    return $value;
}
add_filter('title_save_pre', 'my_function');

Sorry for the Newbie questions and thanks for your help.

Regards, Ian.