A post title often has to do several jobs at once. It identifies the content in WordPress, becomes part of the URL, feeds SEO tools, and appears across templates and archives.

That makes the standard title field a poor place for presentational HTML.

Uplink Editorial Title adds a separate display title for the places where typography and editorial expression matter. The canonical WordPress title stays clean and unchanged.

Why I built it

Consider a title such as:

The New Rules of Carbon-Free Construction

The words “Carbon-Free” might need emphasis in the article header. A publication may want a highlight, italic treatment, strikethrough, or carefully styled scientific notation.

Adding markup directly to the WordPress title can create problems elsewhere. HTML may leak into browser titles, structured data, navigation labels, REST responses, feeds, or SEO metadata.

Uplink Editorial Title avoids that conflict. Editors keep the normal WordPress post title and create an optional formatted title for visual output.

If no editorial title has been entered, the plugin falls back to the standard post title.

Controlled inline formatting

The plugin supports a deliberately small set of inline HTML:

  • Strong
  • Emphasis
  • Highlight
  • Strikethrough
  • Subscript
  • Superscript
image 130
Screenshot of the User Interface (sub/sup disabled)

Administrators can decide which formats editors may use. Disabled formats disappear from the toolbar and do not pass the server-side HTML allowlist.

Highlighting uses the native WordPress color interface. Editors can choose separate text and background colors from the active theme or editor palette. Custom colors follow the site’s existing editor settings.

This is enough for real editorial work without turning a title field into a miniature page builder.

Choose where it appears

Editorial Title can be enabled by post type under Settings > Editorial Title. All eligible post types are enabled by default, including compatible custom post types.

Disabling a post type removes the Editorial Title panel from its editor. Existing editorial title metadata is preserved, so changing the setting does not destroy previous work.

The settings screen also controls the formats available to editors.

Output for WordPress and visual builders

The plugin includes several output methods.

The dynamic Editorial Title block works in WordPress templates, patterns, and Query Loops. It includes native H1-H6 heading-level control.

Etch receives editorial title values through its post dynamic data. Bricks adds Editorial Title tags to its native dynamic-data picker. Theme and plugin developers can use the PHP helper directly.






uplink_get_editorial_title( $post );





A separate helper returns the sanitized classes assigned to an individual post:










uplink_get_editorial_title_class( $post );





The settings page includes a quick reference for all four output methods.





Default block settings





Administrators can choose a default heading level for Editorial Title blocks without an explicit level.





They can also add default CSS classes to the block wrapper. These default classes apply only to the WordPress block. They do not change the class values returned through Etch, Bricks, or the PHP class helper.





Per-post CSS classes remain available across the supported output methods.





image 129
Screenshot of the settings page





What it does not do





Uplink Editorial Title does not replace the canonical WordPress title. It does not change the post slug, browser title, document title, SEO title, navigation label, or feed title.





That separation is the point.





The plugin also does not allow arbitrary HTML. It removes links, spans, custom elements, inline scripts, and unsupported tags. Highlight colors and class names pass separate validation before output.





The editing panel is built for the WordPress block editor. Sites that use the Classic Editor will not receive the same title-editing interface.





Etch and Bricks integrations provide data, but they don’t automatically alter existing templates. The editorial title still needs to be placed in the appropriate template.





The initial release requires WordPress 7.0 or later and PHP 8.3 or later.





Built with safer defaults





Formatted content is stored separately from the standard title. The server checks title markup against the formats selected by an administrator. Color values cannot escape their intended CSS properties, and WordPress checks whether the current user can edit the post before accepting metadata changes.





The result is a focused title-formatting tool with predictable output.





Coming soon to WordPress.org





Uplink Editorial Title is being prepared for submission to the WordPress.org plugin directory.





I plan to submit it after Uplink Editorial Semantics completes the review process and receives approval. WordPress.org review times vary, so I cannot give an exact release date yet.





Once approved, the plugin will be available through the standard WordPress plugin installer, with updates delivered through WordPress itself.