Posts list: show part of excerpt in Compact view if post has no title by sabernhardt · Pull Request #11553 · WordPress/wordpress-develop

sabernhardt · 2026-04-11T17:51:17Z

If the post/page has no title and the excerpt is not already showing, this

Adds a trimmed excerpt to post title link, and the checkbox label matches the link text.
Adds optional styling for the trimmed excerpt.

Use of AI Tools: none

This Pull Request is for code review only. Please keep all other discussion in the Trac ticket. Do not merge this Pull Request. See GitHub Pull Requests for Code Review in the Core Handbook for more details.

github-actions · 2026-04-11T17:51:29Z

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Props sabernhardt, mcsf, annezazu, jeffpaul.

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github-actions · 2026-04-11T17:55:28Z

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sabernhardt · 2026-04-11T17:55:35Z

+.trimmed-post-excerpt {
+	font-weight: 400;
+	padding-left: 4px;
+}


I'm not sure I want the lighter font-weight when it is still part of the link, but I like having a small amount of padding to offset the excerpt.

And the title is not linked in Trash:

sabernhardt · 2026-04-11T17:59:24Z

+	 *
 	 * @param WP_Post $item The current WP_Post object.
 	 */
 	public function column_cb( $item ) {


The checkbox label should include the same text as the link (with 'Select').

The locked icon text might not require the same, but I updated that anyway.

sabernhardt · 2026-04-11T18:05:02Z

+		if ( 'excerpt' !== $mode && '' === get_the_title( $post ) && ! post_password_required( $post ) ) {
+			$excerpt = get_the_excerpt( $post );
+			if ( '' !== $excerpt && is_string( $excerpt ) ) {
+				$title .= ' <span class="trimmed-post-excerpt">' . esc_html( wp_trim_words( $excerpt, 15, ' &hellip;' ) ) . '</span>';


Escapes the output even though wp_trim_words() strips all tags, because it also has a wp_trim_words filter.

jeffpaul · 2026-04-14T02:34:35Z

Tested via Playground and this works as expected for Posts and Pages, noting the excerpt/first bit of page content shows only on the Compact view and not on the Extended view.

mcsf

Thanks for the patch, this is looking great. I've left some notes.

mcsf · 2026-04-14T09:22:57Z

+		if ( 'excerpt' !== $mode && '' === get_the_title( $post ) && ! post_password_required( $post ) ) {
+			$excerpt = get_the_excerpt( $post );
+			if ( '' !== $excerpt && is_string( $excerpt ) ) {
+				$title .= ' <span class="trimmed-post-excerpt">' . esc_html( wp_trim_words( $excerpt, 15, ' &hellip;' ) ) . '</span>';


About the $more string:

Why the leading space? In my mind a simple '…' makes the most sense, and this seems to be corroborated by the many priors in the codebase.

Do you think we should make it translateable? In my mind yes, but then I do see a lot of occurrences in Core — especially these older Admin pieces — of this ellipsis being hardcoded:

wp-includes/general-template.php :4783: $page_links[] = '' . __( '…' ) . ''; wp-admin/edit-comments.php :169: $draft_or_post_title = wp_html_excerpt( _draft_or_post_title( $post_id ), 50, '…' ); wp-admin/themes.php :252: <?php echo ! empty( $_GET['search'] ) ? __( '…' ) : count( $themes ); ?> wp-admin/nav-menus.php :650: wp_html_excerpt( $_nav_menu->name, 40, '…' );

… whereas I expected something like:

// translators: If your locale needs a different [bla bla…] $more = _x( '…', 'ellipsis or equivalent typographic marker of a trimmed excerpt' ); // ... wp_trim_words( $excerpt, 15, $more ) )

I like the space before the ellipsis, but I agree that it would be better to stay consistent with other excerpts (I applied the change).

Translating the string can be a separate discussion. If this ellipsis is translated, it probably should be used for comments and the nav menu name too, but that would not fit the same context as the translatable string found in the pagination or theme count placeholder.

mcsf · 2026-04-14T09:28:43Z

 				<?php
 					/* translators: %s: Post title. */
-					printf( __( 'Select %s' ), _draft_or_post_title() );
+					printf( __( 'Select %s' ), $post_title );


I wonder if this might make it more confusing for users with screen readers or not. Visual users have the luxury of styling to differentiate "(no title)" (bold) from the trimmed excerpt (regular weight).

Should we rearrange the output for screen readers? Otherwise it'll look like this:

Select (no title) Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet

@joedolson mind taking a look here?

The value of changing the font-weight is debatable.

However, I do not agree about rearranging the order of "(no title)" and the excerpt.

I thought I had seen a similar discussion, either on Trac or Slack, about matching invisible label text to the visible text. The closest I found was Trac 63620, where both the invisible label and visible text are exactly the same. In the posts list table, the invisible label includes "Select", and most languages have that before the title.

When the link's accessible name and visible text are "(no title) Lorem ipsum", the label can include the same text in the same order. Technique G211 mentions matching label text to adjacent visible text that "serves as its label". The link technically does not serve as the checkbox's label, but it can serve a similar purpose in addition to being a link on its own.

Ultimately, I do not think these new links and labels can be as accessible as having real, unique titles for every post.

WordPress#11553 (comment)

sabernhardt added 2 commits April 10, 2026 15:30

Add up to 15 words of excerpt if post has no title

08f13aa

optional styles for trimmed excerpt within link

855d1d2

sabernhardt commented Apr 11, 2026

View reviewed changes

mcsf reviewed Apr 14, 2026

View reviewed changes

Merge branch 'trunk' into posts-list-no-title

ba5c3b5

sabernhardt commented Jun 18, 2026

View reviewed changes

Comment thread src/wp-admin/includes/class-wp-posts-list-table.php Outdated

sabernhardt added 2 commits June 18, 2026 14:00

Remove space before ellipsis (suggested by @mcsf)

614d766

WordPress#11553 (comment)

Remove space before ellipsis in visible text

9c87e9e

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Posts list: show part of excerpt in Compact view if post has no title#11553

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