How to remove quote marks and numbers from track titles in audio playlist player

A programmer friend helped me figure it out.

You must edit the file media.php located in the folder wp-includes. The following line numbers are valid as of WordPress 3.9.2, but of course they can change with updates.

To remove quotes, delete the html code for open quotes and close quotes from lines 1103 and 1115.

Line 1103 before editing:

<span class="wp-playlist-item-meta wp-playlist-item-title">& #8220;{{ data.title }}& #8221; </span>

Line 1103 after editing:

<span class="wp-playlist-item-meta wp-playlist-item-title">{{ data.title }} </span>

Line 1115 before editing:

<span class="wp-playlist-item-title">& #8220;{{{ data.title }}}& #8221;</span>

Line 1115 after editing:

<span class="wp-playlist-item-title">{{{ data.title }}}</span>

Note: Remove the space between the ampersand and the pound sign when searching the code. I put it there only because this forum interpreted the html even when I used the block quote or code markup.

To remove track numbers, go to line 1208 and change 'tracknumbers' => true, to 'tracknumbers' => false,.

Here’s the full block of code where the output is specified:

extract( shortcode_atts( array(
		'type'		=> 'audio',
		'order'		=> 'ASC',
		'orderby'	=> 'menu_order ID',
		'id'		=> $post ? $post->ID : 0,
		'include'	=> '',
		'exclude'   => '',
		'style'		=> 'light',
		'tracklist' => true,
		'tracknumbers' => false,
		'images'	=> true,
		'artists'	=> true
	), $attr, 'playlist' ) );

Craig: Calling a solution ‘terrible’ without offering an alternative helps nobody. If you have a solution, then great – I’d love to see it. Otherwise, you’re just trolling.

My post acknowledged that this solution could change with future updates.

For newcomers to WP and coding, here are some details:

Modifications are best done via a child theme, but this is not always possible or feasible. Editing the WP core files, while a last resort, is acceptable if you’re careful and know what you’re doing.

One of the caveats to the solution I provided is that when the WP core is updated, your edits will be overwritten if/when a new version of the media.php file is installed. (I don’t know how WP updates work, so I don’t know if, say, incremental updates might only include files which have been changed.)

In addition to line numbers changing if code is added, removed, or modified earlier in the file, the entire implementation of audio players could change at some point, requiring major alterations to this solution or a completely new one (e.g., if new classes are assigned to the track titles, then you can’t use the ones I provided above when searching the code).

At a minimum, you’ll have to re-edit media.php whenever it’s overwritten.

Regarding the quotes, in media.php, there’s a javascript which attaches them to song titles and then outputs the result as a single entity, which means -unless I’m missing something- that they cannot be targeted with CSS. In other words, quotes can only be removed via CSS if they’re added via CSS.

Bottom line: if you know the difference between a text editor and a word processor, and between WP core files and child themes; and are aware that a single typo can wreak havoc with a web site; and are aware of the above caveats, then the solution I provided is perfectly safe, if less than ideal.