SwipeBox ceased showing image info in the top bar in overlay mode

I think I’ve managed to tap into the core of this problem. It indeed seems an update issue, occurring in WordPress versions 3.5 and higher. Actually, WP deliberately dropped the title tag from img once and for all, for reasons discussed here: http://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/18984

I started working on this site with a fresh WP installed with Cpanel, and it was somewhat older than 3.5. During a routine update round I installed the newest WP version, which then also changed this particular behavior.

As a workaround, I found this plugin – I’ll be testing it shortly and see if it fixes the problem: http://wordpress.org/plugins/restore-image-title/

As for a neater solution, I wonder if SwipeBox authors would be willing to make a WP version using for example alt text instead of title tag in the header box…

It was the post_gallery filter Bartosz mentioned… I can post the source as soon as I get to my dev comp. Just remember it’s ‘as is’, since I’m not a programmer per se; I have no guarantee it works on any other site than mine…

I just dumped this stuff into the functions.php of my child theme:

/**
 * Modify gallery shortcode to add alt texts as titles to a tags.
 */

function get_alt_text_string($link_string, $beginningchars, $endingchars){
         $link_string = " ".$link_string;
         $alt_text_pos = strpos($link_string, $beginningchars);
         if ($alt_text_pos == 0) return "Here you enter the title text in case there's no alt text present";
         $alt_text_pos += strlen($beginningchars);
         $alt_text_len = strpos($link_string,'"',$alt_text_pos) - $alt_text_pos;
         return substr($link_string,$alt_text_pos,$alt_text_len);
}

function gallery_with_titles_from_alt_texts($output, $attr) {
    global $post;

    static $instance = 0;
    $instance++;

    /**
     *  will remove this since we don't want an endless loop going on here
     */
    // Allow plugins/themes to override the default gallery template.
    //$output = apply_filters('post_gallery', '', $attr);

    // We're trusting author input, so let's at least make sure it looks like a valid orderby statement
    if ( isset( $attr['orderby'] ) ) {
        $attr['orderby'] = sanitize_sql_orderby( $attr['orderby'] );
        if ( !$attr['orderby'] )
            unset( $attr['orderby'] );
    }

    extract(shortcode_atts(array(
        'order'      => 'ASC',
        'orderby'    => 'menu_order ID',
        'id'         => $post->ID,
        'itemtag'    => 'dl',
        'icontag'    => 'dt',
        'captiontag' => 'dd',
        'columns'    => 3,
        'size'       => 'thumbnail',
        'include'    => '',
        'exclude'    => ''
    ), $attr));

    $id = intval($id);
    if ( 'RAND' == $order )
        $orderby = 'none';

    if ( !empty($include) ) {
        $include = preg_replace( '/[^0-9,]+/', '', $include );
        $_attachments = get_posts( array('include' => $include, 'post_status' => 'inherit', 'post_type' => 'attachment', 'post_mime_type' => 'image', 'order' => $order, 'orderby' => $orderby) );

        $attachments = array();
        foreach ( $_attachments as $key => $val ) {
            $attachments[$val->ID] = $_attachments[$key];
        }
    } elseif ( !empty($exclude) ) {
        $exclude = preg_replace( '/[^0-9,]+/', '', $exclude );
        $attachments = get_children( array('post_parent' => $id, 'exclude' => $exclude, 'post_status' => 'inherit', 'post_type' => 'attachment', 'post_mime_type' => 'image', 'order' => $order, 'orderby' => $orderby) );
    } else {
        $attachments = get_children( array('post_parent' => $id, 'post_status' => 'inherit', 'post_type' => 'attachment', 'post_mime_type' => 'image', 'order' => $order, 'orderby' => $orderby) );
    }

    if ( empty($attachments) )
        return '';

    if ( is_feed() ) {
        $output = "\n";
        foreach ( $attachments as $att_id => $attachment )
            $output .= wp_get_attachment_link($att_id, $size, true) . "\n";
        return $output;
    }

    $itemtag = tag_escape($itemtag);
    $captiontag = tag_escape($captiontag);
    $columns = intval($columns);
    $itemwidth = $columns > 0 ? floor(100/$columns) : 100;
    $float = is_rtl() ? 'right' : 'left';

    $selector = "gallery-{$instance}";

    $gallery_style = $gallery_div = '';
    if ( apply_filters( 'use_default_gallery_style', true ) )

        $gallery_style = "
        <style type='text/css'>
            #{$selector} {
                margin: auto;
            }
            #{$selector} .gallery-item {
                float: {$float};
                margin-top: 10px;
                text-align: center;
                width: {$itemwidth}%;
            }
            #{$selector} img {
                border: 2px solid #cfcfcf;
            }
            #{$selector} .gallery-caption {
                margin-left: 0;
            }
        </style>
        <!-- see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php -->";

    $size_class = sanitize_html_class( $size );
    $gallery_div = "<div id='$selector' class='gallery galleryid-{$id} gallery-columns-{$columns} gallery-size-{$size_class}'>";
    $output = apply_filters( 'gallery_style', $gallery_style . "\n\t\t" . $gallery_div );

    $i = 0;
    foreach ( $attachments as $id => $attachment ) {
        $link = isset($attr['link']) && 'file' == $attr['link'] ? wp_get_attachment_link($id, $size, false, false) : wp_get_attachment_link($id, $size, true, false);
        
      
        $alt_text_string = get_alt_text_string($link, 'alt="','"'); // Find img alt text if any
        
        $link = str_replace('<a href', '<a title="'. $alt_text_string .'" href', $link); // Add alt text to image link

        $output .= "<{$itemtag} class='gallery-item'>";
        $output .= "
            <{$icontag} class='gallery-icon'>
                $link
            </{$icontag}>";

        if ( $captiontag && trim($attachment->post_excerpt) ) {
            $output .= "
                <{$captiontag} class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption'>
                " . wptexturize($attachment->post_excerpt) . "
                </{$captiontag}>";
        }
        $output .= "</{$itemtag}>";
        if ( $columns > 0 && ++$i % $columns == 0 )
            $output .= '<br style="clear: both" />';
    }

    $output .= "
            <br style='clear: both;' />
        </div>\n";

    return $output;
}
add_filter("post_gallery", "gallery_with_titles_from_alt_texts",10,2);