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WordPress Tip: Adding Custom Fields in Posts

by Tom Johnson on Sep 11, 2010
categories: technical-writing

You can add custom fields below posts, and then pull out the values of those custom fields and insert them into a template. This reduces the sophistication behind styling post data, and automates the display in a template. This technique relies on the Custom Fields Template plugin.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3VXnryN9iY Here are the main steps:

1. Install the Custom Field Template.

2. Navigate to Appearance > Editor and include this code snippet in your functions.php file:

function getCustomField($theField) {
global $post;
$block = get_post_meta($post->ID, $theField);
if($block){
foreach(($block) as $blocks) {
echo $blocks;
}
}
}

3. Configure the custom fields by going to Settings > Custom Field Template, expand the template content section, and add something like this:

[Day Number]
type = text
size = 10
output = true

Note: Unless you add output = true, the custom fields won't work.

4. Go to Appearance > Editor and add this code into the template (such as single.php) where you want the value of the custom field to appear:

<?php getCustomField('Total Miles to Date'); ?>

5. To add a conditional statement around the getCustomField function (so that it only appears under certain conditions, such as the post being in a specific category), include this before the getCustomField function:

<?php if (in_category('3')){ ?>

... then insert your getCustomField functions ...

and then close with this:

<!--?php } else { ?-->   <!--?php } ?-->

Here's more information about conditional tags in WordPress.

About Tom Johnson

Tom Johnson

I'm an API technical writer based in the Seattle area. On this blog, I write about topics related to technical writing and communication — such as software documentation, API documentation, AI, information architecture, content strategy, writing processes, plain language, tech comm careers, and more. Check out my API documentation course if you're looking for more info about documenting APIs. Or see my posts on AI and AI course section for more on the latest in AI and tech comm.

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