How to customize the_archive_title()?

In my child theme’s archive.php, I have the following code for displaying the title of my archive pages:

<?php
    the_archive_title( '<h1 class="page-title">', '</h1>' );
?>

But that displays my titles as “Category: Category Title” instead of simply the title without the prepended “Category: “.

My first instinct was to override get_the_archive_title() from wp-includes/general-template. But from what I’ve read, apparently I’m not supposed to ever alter wordpress core stuff, even with overrides from a child theme.

So what is the best-practice way to control the output of the_archive_title()?

Answers:

Thank you for visiting the Q&A section on Magenaut. Please note that all the answers may not help you solve the issue immediately. So please treat them as advisements. If you found the post helpful (or not), leave a comment & I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.

Method 1

If you look at the source code of get_the_archive_title(), you will see that there is a filter supplied, called get_the_archive_title, through which you can filter the output from the function.

You can use the following to change the output on a category page

add_filter( 'get_the_archive_title', function ( $title ) {

    if( is_category() ) {

        $title = single_cat_title( '', false );

    }

    return $title;

});

Method 2

The accepted answer works to remove the Category: prefix from category archive titles, but not other taxonomy or post types. To exclude other prefixes, there are two options:

1. Rebuild the title for all the variants used in the original get_the_archive_title() function:

   // Return an alternate title, without prefix, for every type used in the get_the_archive_title().
   add_filter('get_the_archive_title', function ($title) {
       if ( is_category() ) {
           $title = single_cat_title( '', false );
       } elseif ( is_tag() ) {
           $title = single_tag_title( '', false );
       } elseif ( is_author() ) {
           $title = '<span class="vcard">' . get_the_author() . '</span>';
       } elseif ( is_year() ) {
           $title = get_the_date( _x( 'Y', 'yearly archives date format' ) );
       } elseif ( is_month() ) {
           $title = get_the_date( _x( 'F Y', 'monthly archives date format' ) );
       } elseif ( is_day() ) {
           $title = get_the_date( _x( 'F j, Y', 'daily archives date format' ) );
       } elseif ( is_tax( 'post_format' ) ) {
           if ( is_tax( 'post_format', 'post-format-aside' ) ) {
               $title = _x( 'Asides', 'post format archive title' );
           } elseif ( is_tax( 'post_format', 'post-format-gallery' ) ) {
               $title = _x( 'Galleries', 'post format archive title' );
           } elseif ( is_tax( 'post_format', 'post-format-image' ) ) {
               $title = _x( 'Images', 'post format archive title' );
           } elseif ( is_tax( 'post_format', 'post-format-video' ) ) {
               $title = _x( 'Videos', 'post format archive title' );
           } elseif ( is_tax( 'post_format', 'post-format-quote' ) ) {
               $title = _x( 'Quotes', 'post format archive title' );
           } elseif ( is_tax( 'post_format', 'post-format-link' ) ) {
               $title = _x( 'Links', 'post format archive title' );
           } elseif ( is_tax( 'post_format', 'post-format-status' ) ) {
               $title = _x( 'Statuses', 'post format archive title' );
           } elseif ( is_tax( 'post_format', 'post-format-audio' ) ) {
               $title = _x( 'Audio', 'post format archive title' );
           } elseif ( is_tax( 'post_format', 'post-format-chat' ) ) {
               $title = _x( 'Chats', 'post format archive title' );
           }
       } elseif ( is_post_type_archive() ) {
           $title = post_type_archive_title( '', false );
       } elseif ( is_tax() ) {
           $title = single_term_title( '', false );
       } else {
           $title = __( 'Archives' );
       }
       return $title;
   });

2. Or, simply strip anything that looks like a title prefix (which may alter actual titles which contain a word followed by the colon character):

   // Simply remove anything that looks like an archive title prefix ("Archive:", "Foo:", "Bar:").
   add_filter('get_the_archive_title', function ($title) {
       return preg_replace('/^w+: /', '', $title);
   });

Method 3

Another option is:

<?php echo str_replace('Brand: ','',get_the_archive_title()); ?>

Replace Brand: with whatever text you are wanting to get rid of.

Its worth looking into the difference between get_the_archive_title() and the_archive_title()
the_archive_title() returns an array
get_the_archive_title() returns a string

Method 4

You could use

echo '<h1 class="page-title">' . single_cat_title( '', false ) . '</h1>';

Method 5

Ben Gillbanks has a nice solution that handles all post types and taxonomies:

function hap_hide_the_archive_title( $title ) {
// Skip if the site isn't LTR, this is visual, not functional.
// Should try to work out an elegant solution that works for both directions.
if ( is_rtl() ) {
    return $title;
}
// Split the title into parts so we can wrap them with spans.
$title_parts = explode( ': ', $title, 2 );
// Glue it back together again.
if ( ! empty( $title_parts[1] ) ) {
    $title = wp_kses(
        $title_parts[1],
        array(
            'span' => array(
                'class' => array(),
            ),
        )
    );
    $title = '<span class="screen-reader-text">' . esc_html( $title_parts[0] ) . ': </span>' . $title;
}
return $title;
}
add_filter( 'get_the_archive_title', 'hap_hide_the_archive_title' );

Method 6

You can use post_type_archive_title() to get the title of an archive without the “Archives:” text.

All methods was sourced from stackoverflow.com or stackexchange.com, is licensed under cc by-sa 2.5, cc by-sa 3.0 and cc by-sa 4.0