June 14, 2017
A deep number of page levels in a website can make navigation difficult for front end users. In addition to breadcrumbs, it is worthwhile to maintain your Top-Most Page Title in all areas to help your visitors find their way between the hierarchical sections of your site.
Nested child pages greater than two levels deep will not work with Page Titles: Ancestor, Parent, Current and Defaults, discussed previously. For hierarchies three levels and greater, you will need the below example to grab the ID of the top-most page.
Original example from CSS-Tricks:
<?php
if ($post->post_parent) {
$ancestors=get_post_ancestors($post->ID);
$root=count($ancestors)-1;
$parent = $ancestors[$root];
} else {
$parent = $post->ID;
}
?>
Example with Top-Most Page Title:
global $post;
$ancestors=get_post_ancestors($post->ID);
$root=count($ancestors)-1;
$parent = $ancestors[$root];
if ($post->post_parent) { ?>
<h1 class="entry-title"><?php echo get_the_title($parent); ?></h1>
<?php } else { ?>
<h1 class="entry-title"><?php the_title(); ?></h1>
<?php } ?>
Example with Top-Most Page Title and ACF Field:
global $post;
$ancestors=get_post_ancestors($post->ID);
$root=count($ancestors)-1;
$parent = $ancestors[$root];
if ($post->post_parent) { ?>
<h1 class="entry-title"><?php
if (get_field('alternate_title', $parent)) {
the_field('alternate_title', $parent);
} else {
echo get_the_title($parent);
}
?></h1>
<?php } else { ?>
<h1 class="entry-title"><?php
if (get_field('alternate_title')) {
the_field('alternate_title');
} else {
echo get_the_title();
}
?></h1>
<?php } ?>
Alternate method with current, parent and grandparent:
$currentpage = $post->ID; // current page id $parentpage = $post->post_parent; // all parents and grand parents $grandparent = get_post_ancestors($currentpage); // grand parent page id $grandparentID = $grandparent[1]; // grandparent with first item in array selected
