Modifying text with the HTML API in WordPress 6.7

[justintadlock]

The Tag Processor will let you customize modifiable text in WordPress 6.7. See:

• HTML API: Plans for 6.7 gutenberg#60396
• Core-61617 Add set_modifiable_text() for plaintext-only modifications.
  • HTML API: Add set_modifiable_text() for replacing text nodes. wordpress-develop#7007
  • HTML API: Ensure that get_modifiable_text() reads enqueued updates. wordpress-develop#7150

This will be a good opportunity to follow up the first article and the HTML API to show some use cases beyond just modifying attributes. Some quick ideas:

• Inserting text before/after a string.
• Replacing emoticons (e.g., :)) with emoji.
• Replacing a "block list" of words with safe words.
• More?

CC: @dmsnell - Pinging for ideas on what you think are solid things to do with this set_modifiable_text()?

[dmsnell]

Replacing a "block list" of words with safe words.

This tends to go real poorly in practice - a clbuttic problem in computer science - and tends to negatively impact specific groups of people more than others, and those groups tend to be the ones that are different from the person writing the code.

It might be valuable to be careful about encouraging behaviors which are often unintentionally exclusionary.

Replacing emoticons (e.g., :)) with emoji.

WordPress/wordpress-develop#6762

set_modifiable_text() makes this easier, but the problem is still complicated in Core. This could be a nice example though.

One aspect of set_modifiable_text() that is important to acknowledge (and it can be a strength as well as a drawback) is that it inherently respects HTML syntax boundaries. For example, a naïve loop using get_modifiable_text() will not detect :<span>)</span> as :) (which is probably correct) but it will also fail to find Mr. Smith from <span class="title">Mr.</span> Smith.

This is relevant for the first case too:

Inserting text before/after a string.

Because it may not be obvious if a chunk of string reported by get_modifiable_text() is connected or not to the one before or after it.

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I do advise caution about widely teaching set_modifiable_text() as the way to modify text because it's still a relatively internal method. It's useful to low-level utilities, but ultimately set_inner_text() and set_inner_html() will be the hallmark public methods.

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Something like replacing Emoji seems like one of the more fitting examples to demonstrate, or replacing usernames or some kind of DSL embedded within the HTML.

[justintadlock]

Thanks, @dmsnell. That's just the sort of feedback I was thinking about.

[flexseth]

I have a great idea for this feature that will be my first plugin submitted to the WP.org plugins repo!

Following the discussion for progress updates.

[ndiego]

Even if there are only a few examples, it might be good to have an article that covers the dos and don'ts of set_modifiable_text().

[flexseth]

Is there anything that will need to be escaped when using the hook? Might be worth a mention

[justintadlock]

I believe plain text is run through htmlspecialchars() with the method, but I haven't really dove into the code.

[dmsnell]

there should be no escaping necessary for any methods in the HTML API, including set_modifiable_text(). If you find any cases where it would be necessary, we consider that a bug and want to fix it.

[justintadlock]

I'm leaning toward closing this one in favor of #313

Let's get some of those foundational examples in place and wait for set_inner_html() for some of the ideas around this.