WordPress plugin: CategoryTinymce

This latest plugin did cause a bit of trouble when I tried to put it together originally but after a bit of thinking outside the box it’s finally up and running. You do need to have WordPress 3.3 installed for this tinymce editor for category description plugin to work.

As you are probably aware the latest version of WordPress 3.3 brought in the wp_editor api. This means that the old fashioned way of calling the tinymce editor to forms in WordPress no longer works. 

Tinymce for category description in WordPress 3.3.

It’s not straightforward to assign the editor to an established form or field. This is true of the category description textarea in WordPress. I spent a lot of time trying to attach the tinymce to the field with varying degrees of success – and mainly failure.  Eventually I gave up trying to assign the editor to the established category description field and started from scratch.

This plugin adds a new form field to the WordPress category editor – but it feeds its information into the same database field as the default box. By using a filter to add in the new textarea I could be sure that the wp_editor api was being called correctly.

Then I added another jquery based filter to hide the original category description box. Once the orignal box was hidden it just looks as though the default category field has an editor attached – depite the fact it is a completely new textarea.

html in category description of WordPress 3.3.

One of the problems that you can have when you use html in the category description field is that when you are on the category adminsitration page the table can be messed up as the decription column contains a lot more information and formating. Add a few images and the look of the admin page can get totally out of hand.

The CategoryTinymce plugin deals with this by running an extra filter through the page to remove the category description column. This brings the table back to a nice looking feature – though of course you will not see the description until you go into the main edit category page.

You can download the plugin from the link below. If you prefer to use the code directly rather than have a plugin add the tinymce then add the following code into your functions file:

// lets remove the html filtering
  
 remove_filter( 'pre_term_description', 'wp_filter_kses' );
 remove_filter( 'term_description', 'wp_kses_data' );
 
// lets add our new cat description box 
  
define('description1', 'Category_Description_option');
add_filter('edit_category_form_fields', 'description1');

function description1($tag) {
    $tag_extra_fields = get_option(description1);
    ?>

<table>
        <tr>
            <th scope="row" valign="top"><label for="description"><?php _ex('Description', 'Taxonomy Description'); ?></label></th>
   <td>
 <?php 
 $settings = array('wpautop' => true, 'media_buttons' => true, 'quicktags' => true, 'textarea_rows' => '15', 'textarea_name' => 'description' ); 
 wp_editor(html_entity_decode($tag->description ), 'description1', $settings); ?> 
 <br />
 <span><?php _e('The description is not prominent by default, however some themes may show it.'); ?></span>
 </td> 
        </tr>
    
</table>
    <?php

}

// quick jquery to hide the default cat description box

function hide_category_description() {
      global $current_screen;
if ( $current_screen->id == 'edit-category' ) {
?>
<script type="text/javascript">
jQuery(function($) {
 $('select#parent').closest('tr.form-field').hide(); $('textarea#description, textarea#tag-description').closest('tr.form-field').hide();
 });
 </script> <?php
 }
   }
  
// lets hide the cat description from the category admin page

add_action('admin_head', 'hide_category_description');
function manage_my_category_columns($columns)
{
 // only edit the columns on the current taxonomy
 if ( !isset($_GET['taxonomy']) || $_GET['taxonomy'] != 'category' )
 return $columns;
 
 // unset the description columns
 if ( $posts = $columns['description'] ){ unset($columns['description']); }
 
 return $columns;
}
add_filter('manage_edit-category_columns','manage_my_category_columns');
// when a category is removed delete the new box

add_filter('deleted_term_taxonomy', 'remove_Category_Extras');
function remove_Category_Extras($term_id) {
  if($_POST['taxonomy'] == 'category'):
    $tag_extra_fields = get_option(Category_Extras);
    unset($tag_extra_fields[$term_id]);
    update_option(Category_Extras, $tag_extra_fields);
  endif;
}

 I’ve sent a request to be hosted in the official WordPress repository and will post the link below if it’s accepted. Using the plugin rather than code will mean that you are automatically notified of any updates.

There’s a couple of tweaks I need to do and I also want to add code to only display the description on the first page of the category archives rather than every page.

Update 7th January 2012.

I have released CategoryTinymce V1.1, this version extends the plugin to include tag description and admin pages. There have been no issues raised with the 1.0 version so I thought it was time to extend it’s functions.

The next version will look at controling the display of the description to the first page of category or tag listings so that you don’t have too many issues with on site duplicate content. Until I include it in the plugin you can add the following code to do this.

In your category.php theme file add the following code to just before get template part call:

if (is_category() && $paged < 2) {
  echo '
  <p>'.category_description().'</p>';
 }

and in your tag.php theme file add the following code, again just before the get template part call:

if (is_tag() && $paged < 2) {
  echo '
  <p>'.tag_description().'</p>';
 }

Update 11th January:

There was an issue with the original code that I have now changed. The problem was  that the filtering of the admin page meant that the ability to assign parent categories was lost. This has now been rectified and the code is sound.

Update: 18th February 2012.

This is the code for version 1.4  if you want to paste it as an actual function in your own functions.php file. Remember that doing it that way means you don’t get notified of ongoing updates and you could miss out.

Version 1.4 below tackles the issue of losing the parent categories box and has also been expanded to add tinymce to taxonomy and tags etc.

// lets remove the html filtering
  
 remove_filter( 'pre_term_description', 'wp_filter_kses' );
 remove_filter( 'term_description', 'wp_kses_data' );
 
// add extra css to display quicktags correctly
add_action( 'admin_print_styles', 'categorytinymce_admin_head' );
function categorytinymce_admin_head() { ?>
<style type="text/css">
  .quicktags-toolbar input{width: 55px !important;}
  </style>
<?php }

 
// lets add our new cat description box 
  
define('description1', 'Category_Description_option');
add_filter('edit_category_form_fields', 'description1');
function description1($tag) {
    $tag_extra_fields = get_option(description1);
    ?>

<table>
        <tr>
            <th scope="row" valign="top"><label for="description"><?php _ex('Description', 'Taxonomy Description'); ?></label></th>
   <td>
 <?php 
 $settings = array('wpautop' => true, 'media_buttons' => true, 'quicktags' => true, 'textarea_rows' => '15', 'textarea_name' => 'description' ); 
 wp_editor(html_entity_decode($tag->description ), 'description1', $settings); ?> 
 <br />
 <span><?php _e('The description is not prominent by default, however some themes may show it.'); ?></span>
 </td> 
        </tr>
    
</table>
    <?php

}

// lets add our new tag description box 
  
define('description2', 'Tag_Description_option');
add_filter('edit_tag_form_fields', 'description2');

function description2($tag) {
    $tag_extra_fields = get_option(description1);
    ?>

<table>
        <tr>
            <th scope="row" valign="top"><label for="description"><?php _ex('Description', 'Taxonomy Description'); ?></label></th>
   <td>
 <?php 
 $settings = array('wpautop' => true, 'media_buttons' => true, 'quicktags' => true, 'textarea_rows' => '15', 'textarea_name' => 'description' ); 
 wp_editor(html_entity_decode($tag->description ), 'description2', $settings); ?> 
 <br />
 <span><?php _e('The description is not prominent by default, however some themes may show it.'); ?></span>
 </td> 
        </tr>
    
</table>
    <?php

}

// quick jquery to hide the default cat description box

function hide_category_description() {
      global $current_screen;
if ( $current_screen->id == 'edit-category' ) {
?>
<script type="text/javascript">
jQuery(function($) {
 $('select#parent').closest('tr.form-field').hide(); $('textarea#description, textarea#tag-description').closest('tr.form-field').hide();
 });
 </script> <?php
 }
   }
  
   // quick jquery to hide the default tag description box

function hide_tag_description() {
      global $current_screen;
if ( $current_screen->id == 'edit-'.$current_screen->taxonomy ) {
?>
<script type="text/javascript">
jQuery(function($) {
 $('select#parent').closest('tr.form-field').hide(); $('textarea#description, textarea#tag-description').closest('tr.form-field').hide();
 });
 </script> <?php
 }
   }
  
// lets hide the cat description from the category admin page

add_action('admin_head', 'hide_category_description');
add_action('admin_head', 'hide_tag_description');

 
function manage_my_category_columns($columns)
{
 // only edit the columns on the current taxonomy
 if ( !isset($_GET['taxonomy']) || $_GET['taxonomy'] != 'category' )
 return $columns;
 
 // unset the description columns
 if ( $posts = $columns['description'] ){ unset($columns['description']); }
 
 return $columns;
}
add_filter('manage_edit-category_columns','manage_my_category_columns');

function manage_my_tag_columns($columns)
{
 // only edit the columns on the current taxonomy
 if ( !isset($_GET['taxonomy']) || $_GET['taxonomy'] != 'post_tag' )
 return $columns;
 
 // unset the description columns
 if ( $posts = $columns['description'] ){ unset($columns['description']); }
 
 return $columns;
}
add_filter('manage_edit-post_tag_columns','manage_my_tag_columns');
// when a category is removed delete the new box

add_filter('deleted_term_taxonomy', 'remove_Category_Extras');
function remove_Category_Extras($term_id) {
  if($_POST['taxonomy'] == 'category'):
    $tag_extra_fields = get_option(Category_Extras);
    unset($tag_extra_fields[$term_id]);
    update_option(Category_Extras, $tag_extra_fields);
  endif;
}

To be kept up to date with all the changes it is advised to use this as a plugin rather than using the code in your functions file.

Download CategoryTinymce

Download CategoryTinymce from the official WordPress directory.

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