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I have a custom content entity in which I have defined all the fields in the annotation (and it shouldn't need to be altered through the UI in any way that I can think of).

In the annotation I have the standard keys defined:

 *   entity_keys = {
 *     "id" = "MY_ID_FIELD",
 *     "label" = "MY_LABEL_FIELD",
 *     "uuid" = "uuid"
 *   },

MY_LABEL_FIELD is a field used for the "title" but I also need it presented in the content. In the entity class, I have it defined as I would need it displayed in the content:

  ->setDisplayOptions('view', array(
    'label' => 'above',
    'type' => 'string',
    'weight' => 3,
   ))

Without any theme overrides, in the page content, MY_LABEL_FIELD renders as expected (and as defined in the annotation) with some basic field wrappers.

<div class="field ...">
  <div class="field--label ..."> [the field's label...] </div>
  <div class="field--item ..."> [the field's value...] </div>
</div>

But...

It renders the same way in the title block, with the field wrappers, in addition it is wrapped in <h1> tags by page-title.html.twig

https://api.drupal.org/api/drupal/core%21lib%21Drupal%21Core%21Render%21Element%21PageTitle.php/8.2.x

https://api.drupal.org/api/drupal/core%21modules%21system%21templates%21page-title.html.twig/8.2.x

And...

It renders as [the field's label...] [the field's value...] inside the HTML <head><title> tags.

https://api.drupal.org/api/drupal/core%21includes%21theme.inc/function/template_preprocess_html/8.2.x

https://api.drupal.org/api/drupal/core%21modules%21system%21templates%21html.html.twig/8.2.x

And...

I need to use the title value in my page template (page.html.twig). There is a title value available in $variables['page']['#title'] in https://api.drupal.org/api/drupal/core%21includes%21theme.inc/function/template_preprocess_page/8.2.x but this title value is the same as HTML above, it is [the field's label...] [the field's value...]

In all 3 places, I simply want [the field's value...] - without the label, without the wrappers. The only place I do want the label and wrappers is inside the content.

One solution is to implement a couple of HOOK_preprocess functions. Another is to implement a title callback.

This issue has been discussed here a number of times:

I tried implementing a title callback...

In my implementation of EntityRouteProviderInterface

$route = (new Route('/MY_PATH/{MY_ENTITY}'))
  ->addDefaults([
    '_entity_view' => 'MY_ENTITY',
    '_title_callback' => '\Drupal\MY_MODULE\Controller\MY_CONTROLLER::titleCallback',
  ])
  ->setRequirement('_entity_access', 'MY_ENTITY.view');
$route_collection->add('entity.MY_ENTITY.canonical', $route);

And in a controller

public function titleCallback() {
  $entity = \Drupal::routeMatch()->getParameter('MY_ENTITY');
  return $entity ? $entity->label() : 'SOME VALUE FOR FALSE';
}

And in my entity class, I implemented the label() method (override the parent class)

/**
  * {@inheritdoc}
  */
public function label() {
  return $this->get('MY_LABEL_FIELD')->value;
}

But I couldn't get this titleCallback() to ever get called. I started poking around a bit... I found that if I removed the "label" definition from the entity annotation, then the titleCallback() worked fine.

So this...

*   entity_keys = {
*     "id" = "MY_ID_FIELD",
*     "label" = "MY_LABEL_FIELD",
*     "uuid" = "uuid"
*   },

became...

*   entity_keys = {
*     "id" = "MY_ID_FIELD",
*     "uuid" = "uuid"
*   },

Then everything seemed OK. MY_LABEL_FIELD was rendered with wrappers in the body and just the value was used in the page title block, the HLML <head><title> and was a simple string available in $variables['page']['#title'].

I moved on to other things.

I continued working on my module. This entity will hold nearly a million records and I started working on methods for loading all that data. After getting to a nice place with several hundred thousand records, I was doing some tests and getting some weird results, in particular entity reference autocomplete widgets pointing to this entity would just display a spinner (with only a few records it seemed fine). At first I thought it was a database issue with so many records, but eventually I discovered that if I put the "label" definition back into my annotation, all was fine again - except of course the title was being rendered with label and field wrappers.

I am guessing that the "label" definition is pretty important. I know it's not required, as my module would work without it. Also, a basic example https://www.drupal.org/docs/8/api/entity-api/create-a-custom-content-entity doesn't show it defined.

So I am not sure where to turn next:

Thoughts?

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1 Answer 1

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OK I found the solution to my problem (why it took me so long is another issue - but of course, it was found in a controller).

Posting as an answer instead of an update (as the question is so long, I think it might get lost).

The "offending" code is in EntityViewController (https://api.drupal.org/api/drupal/core%21lib%21Drupal%21Core%21Entity%21Controller%21EntityViewController.php/8.2.x).

public function buildTitle(array $page) {
  $entity_type = $page['#entity_type'];
  $entity = $page['#' . $entity_type];
  // If the entity's label is rendered using a field formatter, set the
  // rendered title field formatter as the page title instead of the default
  // plain text title. This allows attributes set on the field to propagate
  // correctly (e.g. RDFa, in-place editing).
  if ($entity instanceof FieldableEntityInterface) {
    $label_field = $entity->getEntityType()->getKey('label');
    if (isset($page[$label_field])) {
      $page['#title'] = $this->renderer->render($page[$label_field]);   <---------HERE
    }
  }
  return $page;
}

I imagine that is fine in most use cases, but not in mine. And plus 1 for Drupal devs not losing the documentation on this. https://www.drupal.org/node/2498849

So I need my own controller (node module has an example as well, see NodeViewController) in which I can implement the function buildTitle(array $page) and leave the title as the default plain text.

In my implementation of EntityRouteProviderInterface, the canonical route is defined:

$route = (new Route('/path/{my_entity}'))
  ->addDefaults([
    '_controller' => '\Drupal\my_enitity\Controller\MyEntityViewController::view',
    '_title_callback' => '\Drupal\my_entity\Controller\MyEntityViewController::title',
  ])
  ->setRequirement('my_entity', '\d+')
  ->setRequirement('_entity_access', 'my_entity.view');
$route_collection->add('entity.my_entity.canonical', $route);

And this is the content of the file with my controller

namespace Drupal\my_module\Controller;

use Drupal\Core\Entity\EntityInterface;
use Drupal\Core\Entity\Controller\EntityViewController;

/**
 * Defines a controller to render a single my_entity.
 */
class MyEntityViewController extends EntityViewController {

  /**
   * {@inheritdoc}
   */
  public function buildTitle(array $page) {
    // the parent implementation of this method overrides the default plain text title
    // and sets the title as the fully rendered field (as defined by the field template)
    // we want the default plain text, so we just need to return $page as is.
    return $page;
  }

  /**
   * {@inheritdoc}
   */
  public function view(EntityInterface $my_entity, $view_mode = 'full', $langcode = NULL) {
    // this needs to be implemented to change the name of the first paramater to our entity name 
    // but we can return the parent's output
    $build = parent::view($my_entity, $view_mode, $langcode);  
    return $build;
  }

 /**
   * The _title_callback for the page that renders a single my_entity.
   *
   * @param \Drupal\Core\Entity\EntityInterface $my_entity
   *   The current my_entity.
   *
   * @return string
   *   The page title.
   */
  public function title(EntityInterface $my_entity) {
    // this copies how node implements its title callback.
    return $this->entityManager->getTranslationFromContext($my_entity)->label();
  }  

}
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2
  • Yep, the default 'title' of an entity is the label. In your twig file, you can also print {{ label }}. This also works in node templates, as does {{ node.label }}
    – Kevin
    Jun 17, 2017 at 14:52
  • It's actually the rendered label $page['#title'] = $this->renderer->render($page[$label_field]) and I didn't want that, I just wanted the plain text label. I am using the same field in the content body which I do want with the rendering, so it's sort of a special case.
    – rjl
    Jun 17, 2017 at 15:37

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