How can I reorder elements of title when using `titling`

Question

By default, it seems that* \maketitle processes first the title, then the author, then the date. So what do I do if I want to put the author and date on the top of the page (on opposite sides of the same line), and the title below them?

*: This is what I understand from the documentation of the titling package. I may have misunderstood.

Currently, I accomplish the desired effect with:

\newcommand{\addtitle}[4]{ 
John Smith \hfill \formatdate{#2}{#1}{#3} \\[0.8cm] 

\textbf{\LARGE #4} % text of my title goes here
}

I use this command to add the title for a series of homework assignments, which all have the same author (me), but different dates and titles.

Answer 1

In your document, you can redefine the internal command \@maketitle, in order to swap the the elements; for example, you can use

\makeatletter
\def\@maketitle{%
    \newpage
    \null
    \vskip 2em%
    \vspace*{\droptitle}
    \maketitlehooka
    {\@bspreauthor \@author \@bspostauthor}
    \maketitlehookb
    {\@bspredate \@date \@bspostdate}
    \maketitlehookc
    {\@bspretitle \@title \@bsposttitle}
    \maketitlehookd
    \par
    \vskip 1.5em}
\makeatother

A complete working example:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{titling}
\usepackage{lipsum}% just to generate text for the example

\makeatletter
\def\@maketitle{%
    \newpage
    \null
    \vskip 2em%
    \vspace*{\droptitle}
    \maketitlehooka
    {\@bspreauthor \@author \@bspostauthor}
    \maketitlehookb
    {\@bspredate \@date \@bspostdate}
    \maketitlehookc
    {\@bspretitle \@title \@bsposttitle}
    \maketitlehookd
    \par
    \vskip 1.5em}
\makeatother

\pretitle{\par\noindent\bfseries\LARGE}
\posttitle{\par\vskip1em}
\preauthor{\par\noindent\large}
\postauthor{\hfill}
\predate{\large}
\postdate{\par\vskip0.8cm}

\author{The Author}
\title{Some interesting title}
\date{\today}

\begin{document}
\maketitle
\lipsum[1]
\end{document}

Feel free to adjust the settings according to your needs.