How to programmatically add custom markup to every displayed user name

Question

Drupal 8.x

I am currently using hook_preprocess_user().

I would like to alter the username to add some custom markup to every username.

MYMODULE.module:

function MYMODULE_preprocess_user(&$variables) {
  $variables['elements']['#user']->name->value = t('Name @newMarkup', ['@newMarkup' => ' Hello']);
}

This returns Name Hello Hello. Concatenation adds 'Hello' twice so this approach is not working.

I've also worked with user_format_name_alter(&$name, $account), however, this does not seem to fit my use case.

How can I alter the username text? Not looking for a "currentUser" solution, but every user so names are changed everywhere. Reference, Views, etc.

Answer 1

Seems hook_user_format_name_alter() is your best bet. But same as in the other answer markup doesn't seem to be allowed everywhere. Normally the user name is only allowed to be a string.

The following won't work for Views for example. It will print just a string.

use Drupal\Core\StringTranslation\TranslatableMarkup;

/**
 * Implements hook_user_format_name_alter().
 */
function MYMODULE_user_format_name_alter(&$name, $account) {

  $name = new TranslatableMarkup('@name <span class="foo-bar">Foo Bar</span>', ['@name' => $name]);
}

/**
 * Implements hook_preprocess_HOOK().
 */
function MYMODULE_preprocess_page_title(&$variables) {

  if (\Drupal::routeMatch()->getRouteName() == 'entity.user.canonical') {

    $name = $variables['title']['#markup']->__toString();
    $variables['title'] = new TranslatableMarkup('@name <span class="foo-bar">Foo Bar</span>', ['@name' => $name]);
  }
}

So, what I'd recommend now is, you maybe take the *_preprocess_page_title hook – as this is working just fine on user pages – and for all other places (references, Views etc.) you maybe create a new custom formatter or pseudo field to do the job.

Answer 2

<?php
use Drupal\user\Entity\User;

// Updating a user is a three step process:
// 1) load the user object to change
// 2) set property/field to new value
// 3) Save the user object.

// This example updates the user name.

// $uid is the user id of the user user update
$user = \Drupal\user\Entity\User::load($uid);

// Don't forget to save the user, we'll do that at the very end of code.

// Modify username
$username = $user->getUsername();
$username .= " Hello";
$user->setUsername($username); // string $username: The new user name.

// The crucial part! Save the $user object, else changes won't persist.
$user->save();

// Congratulations, you have updated a user!

I based this on the examples in this Github gist:

https://gist.github.com/dreambubbler/671afd7f962ae46687e41340b396d266