This week’s roundtable featured Sallie Goetsch, Adam Fout, John Locke, and Chris Badgett along with host Jonathan Denwood discussing Custom Fields.
Our episode this week is sponsored by INTELLIGENCEWP.Finally, an analytics plugin that provides valuable metrics and results that increase your leads. INTELLIGENCEWP.
This Week’s News Stories
This week’s news stories featured Matt Madeiros’s article The Blue-collar WordPress Worker and the 2500+ Websites Built to Grow the CMS and an interview with Matt Mullenweg concerning the WordPress Ecosystem on the Post Status podcast
As with much of the conversation in the WordPress community lately, the team agrees that it is the work of the developers and agencies who adopt and use a technology, in this case WordPress, that helps it grow. Customers care about having their business needs met, not about the specific technology used to build it. Only after the agencies and independent developers adopt some a technology and start sharing it, do customers start identifying with that specific solution.
Main Topic: Custom Fields in WordPress
Custom fields extend the default WordPress database tables allowing for additional fields. These are frequently used by plugins, although the end-user may not be aware of this. For example, an Event Calendar plugin uses custom fields for the start and end times of the events. In a shopping cart, the product prices are displayed in custom fields.
One use for custom fields is for creating templates that always need to look the same. For example a template for portfolio items where a video, image, link, and text should always appear in the same locations. Laying this out with custom fields makes it easier to add the information consistently than using the regular visual editor.
As a developer, using custom fields in a case like this helps your clients get the solution they need in a way that minimizes the chance of them creating problems and breaking things within the site.
Plugins for Managing Custom Fields
There are several plugins available to help you create and display custom fields. Some also allow you to create custom post types and custom taxonomies. These include:
- Advanced Custom Fields and ACF Pro https://www.advancedcustomfields.com/
- CMB2 — https://cmb2.io/ — Documentation
- Pods – Custom Content Types and Fields https://pods.io/
- Toolset Types – Custom Post Types, Custom Fields and Taxonomies https://wp-types.com/
This Week’s Panel of WordPress Experts
- Adam Fout: fromBlue Steele Solutions
- Sallie Goetsch: from WP Fangirl
- Kim Shivler: from White Glove Web Training
- John Locke: from Lockedown Design
- Jonathan Denwood: from WP-Tonic.com
- Chris Badgett: from LIFTERLMS
Why don’t you join us on Facebook every Friday at 8:30 am PST and be part of our live show? https://www.facebook.com/wptonic/
To also see a list of upcoming Friday & Wednesday shows during the month go here. https://www.wp-tonic.com/blab/
The post 247 WP-Tonic Friday Round-Table Show: Extending WordPress Using ACF (Advanced Custom Fields) appeared first on WP-Tonic: WordPress Support & Small Fixes.
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