{"id":1963464,"date":"2025-01-07T14:43:58","date_gmt":"2025-01-07T19:43:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staging.theeventscalendar.com\/knowledgebase\/?p=1963464"},"modified":"2025-07-14T13:25:57","modified_gmt":"2025-07-14T17:25:57","slug":"customizing-error-messages-for-community-event-submissions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.theeventscalendar.com\/knowledgebase\/customizing-error-messages-for-community-event-submissions\/","title":{"rendered":"Customizing Error Messages for Community Event Submissions"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By default, the only fields required when submitting an event through the Community plugin are ‘Title’ and ‘Description’, though you can also set other fields as required with this guide<\/a>. If you would like to customize the error messages displayed to a user when a required field is missing, this is possible through the process we’ll cover in this guide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Changing Error Messages for Default Required Fields<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

First, let’s understand where these error messages are coming from. If you go to your Event Submission page and try to submit an event without a title and description, you can use Chrome Dev Tools<\/a> to inspect the page and use the console to enter tribe_submit_form_i18n<\/code> . This will show the object errors<\/code> where all the errors are stored. They all have key-value<\/code> pair – in this case the key<\/code> is the label for the field and the value<\/code> is the error message to be output.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Since these errors are added through a script, we can use a snippet that modifies the script to update error messages:<\/p>\n\n\n

\nadd_action( 'wp_enqueue_scripts', function ( ) {\n\/\/ Ensure the script is enqueued\n\twp_enqueue_script( 'tribe_events-community' );\n\n\/\/ Modify the localization data\n\twp_add_inline_script( 'tribe_events-community', '\n        if ( tribe_submit_form_i18n.errors[ "post_title" ] ) { \/\/ Tweak to match which field you want to change\n        tribe_submit_form_i18n.errors[ "post_title" ] = "You cannot submit an event without a title"; \/\/ Tweak to match what message you want to output\n        }\n    ', 'before' );\n}, 20 );\n<\/pre><\/div>\n\n\n
Here is how that would affect the frontend: <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Let’s add to the Event Description to the same example:<\/p>\n\n\n
\nadd_action( 'wp_enqueue_scripts', function ( ) {\n\t\t\/\/ Ensure the script is enqueued.\n\t\twp_enqueue_script( 'tribe_events-community' );\n\n\t\t\/\/ Modify the localization data.\n\t\twp_add_inline_script(\n\t\t\t'tribe_events-community',\n\t\t\t'if ( tribe_submit_form_i18n.errors["post_title"] ) { \n        tribe_submit_form_i18n.errors[ "post_title" ] = "You cannot submit an event without a title"; \n        }\n        if ( tribe_submit_form_i18n.errors[ "tcepostcontent" ] ) { \n        tribe_submit_form_i18n.errors[ "tcepostcontent" ] = "Please add an event description \ud83d\ude48"; \n        }',\n\t\t\t'before' \n\t\t);\n\t}\n);\n<\/pre><\/div>\n\n\n
And here is how that would affect the frontend: <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Changing Error Messages for Custom Required Fields<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
In the case where you have set up requiring fields other than the default, it is still possible to tweak the error message(s). This is assuming that you’ve set up Additional Fields with Events Calendar Pro<\/a>. For this example, these are the Additional Fields we will be requiring and altering the error message: <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Here are the snippets<\/a> all together to require and label all our additional fields at once (keeping in mind that in the example these are the custom fields 2, 3, and 5, which might be different on your site):<\/p>\n\n\n
\nfunction my_community_required_fields( $fields ) {\n\tif ( ! is_array( $fields ) ) {\n\t\treturn $fields;\n\t}\n\t$fields[] = '_ecp_custom_2'; \n\t$fields[] = '_ecp_custom_3'; \n\t$fields[] = '_ecp_custom_5';\n\treturn $fields;\n}\n\nadd_filter( 'tec_events_community_allowed_fields', 'my_community_allowed_fields' );\n\nfunction my_community_allowed_fields( $fields ) {\n\tif ( ! is_array( $fields ) ) {\n\t\treturn $fields;\n\t}\n\t$fields[] = '_ecp_custom_2'; \n\t$fields[] = '_ecp_custom_3'; \n\t$fields[] = '_ecp_custom_5';\n\treturn $fields;\n}\n\nadd_filter( 'tribe_community_events_field_label_text', 'tec_additional_fields_required_labels', 10, 2 );\n\nfunction tec_additional_fields_required_labels( $text, $field ) {\n\t\/\/ Add required label if it is one of the Additional Fields.\n\tif ( strstr( $field, '_ecp_custom_2') ) {\n\t\treturn $text . ' <span class="req">(required)<\/span>';\n\t}\n\tif ( strstr( $field, '_ecp_custom_3') ) {\n\t\treturn $text . ' <span class="req">(required)<\/span>';\n\t}\n\tif ( strstr( $field, '_ecp_custom_5') ) {\n\t\treturn $text . ' <span class="req">(required)<\/span>';\n\t}\n\n    \/\/ If it's not one of the Additional Fields we require, just return the label\n    return $text;\n}\n<\/pre><\/div>\n\n\n
Without adding our snippet to change the error messages, this is what will now show when these required fields are empty and someone tries to submit the event: <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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To enhance the clarity of your error messages by pinpointing the required fields, you can integrate the following code snippet into your site:<\/p>\n\n\n\n