[wp-hackers] CPT with post_title names

[Simon Blackbourn]

I had a very similar scenario to you and came up with this solution:

 - The post title consists of the member's name written in the standard
firstname surname way, minus the honourific.

 - I hook into the enter_title_here filter so the title input placeholder
text reads "Enter first name and surname here", just as a reminder for the
site editor.

 - There is a metabox on the post edit screen for the honourific, selected
from a dropdown.

 - A postmeta called alphaname is auto-generated from the title on the
save_post hook as follows:

  $names        = explode( ' ', trim( $_POST['post_title'] ) );
  $words         = count( $names );
  $alphaname = $names[$words-1] . ' ' . $names[0];

  Note: doesn't work for Cher or Madonna ;-)

 - The posts_join, posts_orderby and posts_where filters are used to sort
posts by the alphaname postmeta.

 - The honourific, if one exists, is output before the post title.

There are doubtless more elegant ways, but that has worked well for over a
year now with no mishaps on a site managed by non-teccie users.

Hope that helps
Simon