Enable HTML code in WordPress Widget Titles

WordPress widgets don’t allow HTML code by default. With the snippet below, you’ll be able to use basic HTML styling tags (even span tags) in WordPress widget titles. Put it in your functions.php file.

{code type=php}

function html_widget_title( $title ) {
//HTML tag opening/closing brackets
$title = str_replace( ‘[‘, ‘<‘, $title );
$title = str_replace( ‘[/’, ‘</’, $title );
// bold — changed from ‘s’ to ‘strong’ because of strikethrough code
$title = str_replace( ‘strong]’, ‘strong>’, $title );
$title = str_replace( ‘b]’, ‘b>’, $title );
// italic
$title = str_replace( ’em]’, ’em>’, $title );
$title = str_replace( ‘i]’, ‘i>’, $title );
// underline
// $title = str_replace( ‘u]’, ‘u>’, $title ); // could use this, but it is deprecated so use the following instead
$title = str_replace( ‘<u]’, ‘<span style=”text-decoration:underline;”>’, $title );
$title = str_replace( ‘</u]’, ‘</span>’, $title );
// superscript
$title = str_replace( ‘sup]’, ‘sup>’, $title );
// subscript
$title = str_replace( ‘sub]’, ‘sub>’, $title );
// del
$title = str_replace( ‘del]’, ‘del>’, $title ); // del is like strike except it is not deprecated, but strike has wider browser support — you might want to replace the following ‘strike’ section to replace all with ‘del’ instead
// strikethrough or <s></s>
$title = str_replace( ‘strike]’, ‘strike>’, $title );
$title = str_replace( ‘s]’, ‘strike>’, $title ); // <s></s> was deprecated earlier than so we will convert it
$title = str_replace( ‘strikethrough]’, ‘strike>’, $title ); // just in case you forget that it is ‘strike’, not ‘strikethrough’
// tt
$title = str_replace( ‘tt]’, ‘tt>’, $title ); // Will not look different in some themes, like Twenty Eleven — FYI: http://reference.sitepoint.com/html/tt
// marquee
$title = str_replace( ‘marquee]’, ‘marquee>’, $title );
// blink
$title = str_replace( ‘blink]’, ‘blink>’, $title ); // only Firefox and Opera support this tag
// wtitle1 (to be styled in style.css using .wtitle1 class)
$title = str_replace( ‘<wtitle1]’, ‘<span class=”wtitle1″>’, $title );
$title = str_replace( ‘</wtitle1]’, ‘</span>’, $title );
// wtitle2 (to be styled in style.css using .wtitle2 class)
$title = str_replace( ‘<wtitle2]’, ‘<span class=”wtitle2″>’, $title );
$title = str_replace( ‘</wtitle2]’, ‘</span>’, $title );

return $title;
}
add_filter( ‘widget_title’, ‘html_widget_title’ );

 

My snippet above is a modified and expanded version of the one I found on WP-Snippets.com. Notice the option for span tags (last 2 in the snippet), which you could wrangle with your theme’s style.css.

Here’s the CSS code used in the screenshot for the colored span widget titles (in Twenty Eleven’s style.css):

{code type=css}.wtitle1 {color:blue;}
.wtitle2 {font-family:”Times New Roman”, Times, serif; color:green;}

Best practice is to use a child theme for your theme customizations, including functions.php and style.css.

In case you weren’t sure, you can use full HTML (no snippet needed) in a WordPress text widget, just not in any widget titles.

Tags:

• CSS
• HTML
• child themes
• functions
• widgets