WordPress Advanced Custom Fields

Now this is a game-changer!! Custom Post Types and Custom Fields have always been the argument from outside the WordPress community because admittedly it was an area that WordPress did fall short in comparison to other types of Content Management Systems and Frameworks such as Joomla, Drupal, etc.  For quite some time there have been workaround solutions to address this need for customization but none have really been anything that I was a huge fan of, like PODS. Well, stop the press, there’s a game changer on the horizon that is going to fill that gap. Advanced Custom Fields is the perfect solution for any wordpress website which needs more flexible data like other Content Management Systems. Out of the box, here’s what you can expect from Advanced Custom Fields…

• Visually create your Fields
• Select from multiple input types
• Assign your fields to multiple edit pages (via custom location rules)
• Easily load data through a simple and friendly API
• Uses the native WordPress custom post type for ease of use and fast processing
• Uses the native WordPress metadata for ease of use and fast processing

Currently the Available Custom Field Types (out of the box) are as follows:

• Text (type text, api returns text)
• Text Area (type text, api returns text with <br /> tags)
• WYSIWYG (a wordpress wysiwyg editor, api returns html)
• Image (upload an image, api returns the url)
• File (upload a file, api returns the url)
• Select (drop down list of choices, api returns chosen item)
• Checkbox (tick for a list of choices, api returns array of choices)
• Page Link (select 1 or more page, post or custom post types, api returns the url)
• Post Object (select 1 or more page, post or custom post types, api returns post objects)
• Date Picker (jquery date picker, options for format, api returns string)
• True / False (tick box with message, api returns true or false)
• Repeater (ability to create repeatable blocks of fields!)
• Relationship (select and order post objects with a tidy interface)
• Color Picker (Farbtastic!)

But keep in mind that there is a ton of development work being knocked out by the community and this list will soon grow (if you can imagine that). In fact there are already several add-ons listed in the Extend > Plugins directory for free as well as a few that I’ve ran across this evening that are paid licenses. Using the plugin right out of the box is very self explanatory once you read through their documentation. The ACF Website is an awesome resource because not only does it have the most recent release version of the plugin available but it also has code examples, API Functions,  and some great tutorials to get you started…

I will be blogging more about this awesome solution in the coming weeks once I have had a chance to get my head around it a little more so stay tuned…