Disable $title in Plugin Options Screen?

As background, and to answer my own question (after some research), the <form> tag in an Options screen is usually generated with code similar to this:

<form action='options.php' method='post'>
<?php
settings_fields( 'pluginPage' );    // initializes all of the settings fields
do_settings_sections( 'pluginPage' );   // does the settings section; into a table
submit_button();    // creats the submit button
?>
</form>

The do_settings_section() function is part of the Options API, and is responsible for creating the option settings fields defined in add_settings_fields statements. (See https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/functions/do_settings_sections/ ).

The do_settings_section() function eventually calls do_settings_fields() which outputs (renders) the actual <input> statements via the callback specified by add_settings_field(). (See https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/functions/do_settings_fields/ ).

If we look at the code for do_settings_field, we will find statements that output each settings field (into a table – sigh):

echo "<tr{$class}>";

if ( ! empty( $field['args']['label_for'] ) ) {
    echo '<th scope="row"><label for="' . esc_attr( $field['args']['label_for'] ) . '">' . $field['title'] . '</label></th>';
} else {
    echo '<th scope="row">' . $field['title'] . '</th>';
}
echo '<td>';
call_user_func($field['callback'], $field['args']);
echo '</td>';
echo '</tr>';

And we can see here the <th> code for the field $title (defined in the add_settings_field definition of the settings field).

So, the only way to output settings fields without a table, in the format you want, is to bypass the do_settings_section() in the <form> with your own code, such as using your own my_render_fields() function in the settings form:

<form action='options.php' method='post'>
<?php
settings_fields( 'pluginPage' );    // initializes all of the settings fields
my_render_fields();     // render fields without do_settings so no table codes
submit_button();    // creates the submit button
?>
</form>

Note that settings_field() will also include the ‘nonce’ in the form, which is needed on Settings pages. (Not having a nonce can cause other errors on settings screens.)

Hope this helps others. Digging into the source code of WP functions sometimes gives you insights into problems. (I was hoping for a filter that would bypass the rendering of the field, but no such luck. But creating your own field rendering function is not hard.)