wagtail/docs/advanced_topics/documents/title_generation_on_upload.md

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Title generation on upload

When uploading a file (document), Wagtail takes the filename, removes the file extension, and populates the title field. This section is about how to customise this filename to title conversion.

The filename to title conversion is used on the single file widget, multiple upload widget, and within chooser modals.

You can also customise this same behaviour for images.

You can customise the resolved value of this title using a JavaScript event listener which will listen to the 'wagtail:documents-upload' event.

The simplest way to add JavaScript to the editor is via the insert_global_admin_js hook. However, any JavaScript that adds an event listener will work.

DOM event

The event name to listen to is 'wagtail:documents-upload'. It will be dispatched on the document upload form. The event's detail attribute will contain:

• data - An object which includes the title to be used. It is the filename with the extension removed.
• maxTitleLength - An integer (or null) which is the maximum length of the Document model title field.
• filename - The original filename without the extension removed.

To modify the generated Document title, access and update event.detail.data.title, no return value is needed.

For single document uploads, the custom event will only run if the title does not already have a value so that we do not overwrite whatever the user has typed.

You can prevent the default behaviour by calling event.preventDefault(). For the single upload page or modals, this will not pre-fill any value into the title. For multiple uploads, this will avoid any title submission and use the filename title only (with file extension) as a title is required to save the document.

The event will 'bubble' up so that you can simply add a global document listener to capture all of these events, or you can scope your listener or handler logic as needed to ensure you only adjust titles in some specific scenarios.

See MDN for more information about custom JavaScript events.

Code examples

Adding the file extension to the start of the title

# wagtail_hooks.py
from django.utils.safestring import mark_safe

from wagtail import hooks


@hooks.register("insert_global_admin_js")
def get_global_admin_js():
    return mark_safe(
    """
    <script>
    window.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded', function () {
        document.addEventListener('wagtail:documents-upload', function(event) {
            var extension = (event.detail.filename.match(/\.([^.]*?)(?=\?|#|$)/) || [''])[1];
            var newTitle = '(' + extension.toUpperCase() + ') ' + (event.detail.data.title || '');
            event.detail.data.title = newTitle;
        });
    });
    </script>
    """
    )

Changing generated titles on the page editor only to remove dashes/underscores

Use the insert_editor_js hook instead so that this script will run only on page editors and not on the Document.

# wagtail_hooks.py
from django.utils.safestring import mark_safe

from wagtail import hooks


@hooks.register("insert_editor_js")
def get_global_admin_js():
    return mark_safe(
    """
    <script>
    window.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded', function () {
        document.addEventListener('wagtail:documents-upload', function(event) {
            // replace dashes/underscores with a space
            var newTitle = (event.detail.data.title || '').replace(/(\s|_|-)/g, " ");
            event.detail.data.title = newTitle;
        });
    });
    </script>
    """
    )

Stopping pre-filling of title based on filename

# wagtail_hooks.py
from django.utils.safestring import mark_safe

from wagtail import hooks


@hooks.register("insert_global_admin_js")
def get_global_admin_js():
    return mark_safe(
    """
    <script>
    window.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded', function () {
        document.addEventListener('wagtail:documents-upload', function(event) {
            // will stop title pre-fill on single file uploads
            // will set the multiple upload title to the filename (with extension)
            event.preventDefault();
        });
    });
    </script>
    """
    )