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@swalkinshaw
Created May 14, 2012 18:25
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WordPress: Mandatory Excerpt
<?
function mandatory_excerpt($data) {
$excerpt = $data['post_excerpt'];
if (empty($excerpt)) {
if ($data['post_status'] === 'publish') {
add_filter('redirect_post_location', 'excerpt_error_message_redirect', '99');
}
$data['post_status'] = 'draft';
}
return $data;
}
add_filter('wp_insert_post_data', 'mandatory_excerpt');
function excerpt_error_message_redirect($location) {
remove_filter('redirect_post_location', __FILTER__, '99');
return add_query_arg('excerpt_required', 1, $location);
}
function excerpt_admin_notice() {
if (!isset($_GET['excerpt_required'])) return;
switch (absint($_GET['excerpt_required'])) {
case 1:
$message = 'Excerpt is required to publish a post.';
break;
default:
$message = 'Unexpected error';
}
echo '<div id="notice" class="error"><p>' . $message . '</p></div>';
}
add_action('admin_notices', 'excerpt_admin_notice');
@JessePreiner
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JessePreiner commented May 5, 2017

Has anyone had issues with this causing an over abundance of Auto-Drafts? After using this every time any of our users log into WordPress it creates an Auto-Draft for them. I tried moving it to a plugin but same thing. Disabling the plugin makes the problem disappear.

Edit: so it wasn't creating an unusual amount of Auto-Drafts, it was just doing what it always does, but the problem was that the mandatory_excerpt function was preventing drafts from being deleted. My only intuition to why that was happening is the line:
$data['post_status'] = 'draft'; // happens when deleting, too?

I ended up adding a few extra checks which helps (we have some additional post types and custom statuses).

function mandatory_excerpt($data) {
  $excerpt = $data['post_excerpt'];
  if ( ($data['post_type'] === 'post' || $data['post_type']==='poll') && empty($excerpt)) {
    if ($data['post_status'] === 'publish') {
      add_filter('redirect_post_location', 'excerpt_error_message_redirect', '99');
    }
    if ('deleted' !== $data['post_status'] && 'trash' !== $data['post_status']) {
      $data['post_status'] = 'draft';    
    }
    
  }
  return $data;
}

@DanCanetti
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Thank you! Just what I've been looking for and without the need for another plugin!

@Jamie0
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Jamie0 commented Sep 26, 2017

@ManyouRisms You would probably be better with the following logic:

    function mandatory_excerpt($data) {
        if (empty($data['post_excerpt'])) {

                if ($data['post_status'] === 'publish') {
                        add_filter('redirect_post_location', 'excerpt_error_message_redirect', '99');
                }

                if ($data['post_status'] == 'publish' || $data['post_status'] == 'future' || $data['post_status'] == 'pending') {
                        $data['post_status'] = 'draft';
                }
        }

        return $data;
    }

@adamsimonini
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Thank's for the logic. My office's iteration of WordPress doesn't allow for most plugins, so this kind of solution was necessary! Thanks again!

@microneer
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Thanks to the help from this Gist and comments, I made a class which does this with a few bells and whistles. It allows you to define different minimum lengths for different (custom) post types. Usage is simple:

$temp = new Mandatory_Excerpt();
$temp->add('post', 20); // Posts will now need to have 20 characters or more.
// add more minimum excerpt lengths here if required

@reasadazim
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reasadazim commented Feb 6, 2018

Your code helped me a lot. I wanted to make excerpt field mandatory for my CPT but your code make excerpt field mendatory for PAGE and default POST also. However, I made slight change and that worked.

function mandatory_excerpt($data) {
//change your_post_type to post, page, or your custom post type slug
  if ( 'your_post_type' == $data['post_type'] ) { 
     
  $excerpt = $data['post_excerpt'];

  if (empty($excerpt)) { // If excerpt field is empty

      // Check if the data is not drafed and trashed
      if ( ( $data['post_status'] != 'draft' ) && ( $data['post_status'] != 'trash' ) ){

        $data['post_status'] = 'draft';

      add_filter('redirect_post_location', 'excerpt_error_message_redirect', '99'); 
        
      }
    }
  }
 
  return $data;
}

add_filter('wp_insert_post_data', 'mandatory_excerpt'); 

function excerpt_error_message_redirect($location) {

  $location = str_replace('&message=6', '', $location);

  return add_query_arg('excerpt_required', 1, $location); 

}

function excerpt_admin_notice() {

  if (!isset($_GET['excerpt_required'])) return;

  switch (absint($_GET['excerpt_required'])) {

    case 1:

      $message = 'Excerpt field is empty! Excerpt is required to publish your recipe post.';

      break;

    default:

      $message = 'Unexpected error';
  }

  echo '<div id="notice" class="error"><p>' . $message . '</p></div>';

}


add_action('admin_notices', 'excerpt_admin_notice');

@kevinohashi
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If you want to only have this happen on a specific post type you can use some logic:

if (empty($data['post_excerpt']) && $data['post_type']=='post') {

changing 'post' to whatever post type you wish.

@lautiab
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lautiab commented Oct 11, 2018

I do really love you guys. I know closely none PHP and I needed this for a freelance project!!
I owe you'all one!

@marianssen
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The code works as expected on posts, but there is an issue with menu. Somehow, after updating a menu, the menu items get marked as pending. Removing your code fixed the issue.

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