Open Graph Protocol Framework

The Open Graph protocol enables any web page to become a rich object in a social graph. For instance, this is used on Facebook to allow any web page to have the same functionality as any other object on Facebook.

This WordPress plugin is aimed at automating the process of adding basic and optional metadata to a site’s pages. It is also designed to act as a framework for other plugins or themes and allows to modify and adapt the information provided as needed.

If you find this plugin useful and would like to support our work, you can do so by purchasing in our Shop, thank you!

Usage

Install and activate the plugin. It will automatically render the following metadata for posts, pages, etc. :

• og:title : The page’s title is used, this provides the title for posts, pages, archives etc.
• og:type : The type will be article in general, website for the front page and blog for the blog homepage.
• og:image : For post types that support featured images, the URL of the featured image is used. Additional metadata og:image:width, og:image:height, og:image:url, og:image:secure_url and og:image:alt are added.
• og:url : The URL of the current page.
• og:site_name : The name of the site.
• og:description : Uses the full excerpt if available, otherwise derives it from the content. For author and archive pages, the type of page and title is used.
• og:locale : The current locale.
• og:locale:alternate : Indicates additional locales available if WPML is installed.

The content of the og:image:alt property is based on the Alt Text of the featured image, the image’s Caption in lack thereof, or ultimately the image’s Description in lack of the latter. If any of those are empty, the property is not rendered.

Filters

This section is for developers. If you’re not a developer, you can safely skip it.

The plugin provides the following filters:

open_graph_protocol_meta

This filter allows to modify the value of the content attribute for a given meta tag.
It is invoked for every supported type of metadata.

Parameters:

• string content – the current value of the content attribute
• string property – the metadata name, for example og:title

Filters must return:

• string the desired value of the content attribute

open_graph_protocol_meta_tag

This filter allows to modify the actual HTML <meta> tag that is rendered in the <head> section of pages.

Parameters:

• string HTML <meta> tag
• string property – the metadata name, for example og:title
• string content – the value of the content attribute

Filters must return:
– string the desired output for the HTML <meta> tag

open_graph_protocol_metas

This filter allows to add or remove metadata before it is rendered.

Parameters:

• array of metadata indexed by metadata name

Filters must return:
– array of metadata indexed by metadata name

open_graph_protocol_echo_metas

This filter allows to modify the HTML that renders the plugin’s meta tags in the <head> section.

Parameters:

• string HTML with <meta> tags to be rendered

Filters must return:
– string HTML with <meta> tags to be rendered

Why this plugin?

This plugin was created because we needed an extendable way to render meta tags based on the Open Graph protocol, which would allow to modify the meta tag content rendered or add meta tags when appropriate based on external data.

None of the existing plugins provided a sufficiently flexible way of doing that, among other reasons we needed a solution that would comply with all of these requirements and none of the existing solutions does:

• must be compatible with WordPress 3.5
• must automatically add meta tags for featured images
• must be automated and create sensible meta tag content for each page, we don’t want to manually indicate the tag content for every page
• must provide a framework for extension through hooks and filters on every tag, and provide a design that allows other plugins to modify the meta tags in flexible ways
• must not ask to provide your Facebook account details or application ID when there is no need for it
• must not be bloated with features you don’t want or need when you simply want Open Graph metatags to be rendered automatically for your pages

Logo Attribution

The logo used for this plugin’s icon and banner is the Open Graph protocol logo by Facebook – ogp.me. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.