The objective is to ensure that when editing a post, the metabox that lists a hierarchical taxonomy doesn’t reorder itself upon Update to put checked items on top.
Right now, edit-form-advanced.php
calls add_meta_box()
, passing a callback of post_categories_meta_box
, which is defined in meta-boxes.php
.
post_categories_meta_box()
invokes wp_terms_checklist()
, leaving the checked_ontop
parameter undefined. wp_terms_checklist()
defaults that parameter to true
, which is the root cause of all this hooplah.
Nary a filter hook to be found anywhere along the chain until we back out and discover add_meta_boxes
and add_meta_boxes_{$post_type}
.
The only solution I was able to come up with myself was to hook onto one of these actions, globalize $wp_meta_boxes
, and replace occurrences of the post_categories_meta_box
callback with a callback of my own, where I completely duplicate all of post_categories_meta_box()
and simply add the parameter 'checked_ontop' => false
.
Works. But fugly. This seems ridiculous – is there no more elegant way to simply let your hierarchical taxonomies keep their order in metaboxes?
2 Answers
There’s a plugin written specifically to fix this ‘feature’ of WordPress, it’s called Category Checklist Tree. Despite the name, it works on custom taxonomies too.