How to change the text of the “You are about to permanently delete these items…” alert message when deleting media from the media library?

Question

This alert shows when you click Delete Permanently on a media (attachment) item.

My Goal: I want to change the text of the alert if the current user has a certain custom meta value. Also, changing wordpress core is not an acceptable answer because updates would wipe my code.

I see this message's text is set in 2 places:

1 - wp-includes/script-loader.php (the wp_default_scripts() function)

2 - wp-includes/media.php (the wp_enqueue_media() function)

Here is the relevant code from script-loader.php for your convenience:

did_action( 'init' ) && $scripts->localize( 'common', 'commonL10n', array( 'warnDelete' => __( "You are about to permanently delete these items from your site.\nThis action cannot be undone.\n 'Cancel' to stop, 'OK' to delete." ), 'dismiss' => __( 'Dismiss this notice.' ), 'collapseMenu' => __( 'Collapse Main menu' ), 'expandMenu' => __( 'Expand Main menu' ), ));

I tried preventing the alert and adding my own via jquery, but this is not a good solution. Can I re-localize the "common" script myself with my message as the warnDelete maybe? Any ideas would be much appreciated.

Answer 1

You could use the gettext filter. See the examples here https://codex.wordpress.org/Plugin_API/Filter_Reference/gettext. In your filter you will add code to check

1. IF it's the exact text you want to change
2. then if the users meta value is what you are looking for

the return the revised text.

Else return the passed text unchanged.