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<\/p>\nWhen you read blog posts, you can see the author\u2019s name, the topic or category the article belongs to, and the date of publication. However, bloggers may also decide to include other information. In this case, the post will contain more fields. When working with multiple posts, adding the same information over and over again can be extremely time-consuming. The task becomes especially difficult when working with such content-heavy websites as blogs. If you\u2019re using WordPress, however, you can do it much faster by using custom fields.<\/p>\n
A \u0441ustom field in WordPress enables you to modify the editor, adding a specific place for a certain type of information. This information can be displayed with every post and every page of your site. For example, you can use custom fields to add disclaimers to affiliate content or to include product ratings in reviews. In this article, we will consider custom fields in more detail. You will learn what custom fields are and how you can use them. On the one hand, using custom fields can be considered an advanced technique. On the other hand, it\u2019s much simpler than it seems.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Before we consider custom fields in more detail, let\u2019s figure out what they are. When you create a new post in your WordPress blog, the platform stores your information in two ways. First, there is the content itself. Secondly, there is additional information, which is called metadata. Metadata contains various details about your post. It may include numbers, text, dates, etc. It consists of pairs of keys and values, where a key represents the name of a particular field, and its value contains the necessary information. The WordPress editor already includes some fields by default, but if you want to include more types of data, you need to create custom fields.<\/p>\n
The custom fields feature is hidden by default. However, you can learn to create custom fields to include any additional information that you want. For instance, if you have an affiliate website where you publish various product reviews, you can add a field with a score to each of your posts so that each product will have its rating.<\/p>\n
Custom fields are stored as metadata, but when you categorize your metadata, custom fields enable you to display it on the front end so that people who visit your website can see it.<\/p>\n
Custom fields are a very useful customization tool that enables you to improve the design of your WordPress website and to tailor it to your specific needs. Here are some of the main benefits of adding custom fields to your posts.<\/p>\n
Now let\u2019s figure out how to add custom field in WordPress, and how you can use custom fields for different purposes.<\/p>\n
Start editing the page or post where you want to add a custom field. Open the Edit Post<\/strong> page and find the Custom Fields<\/strong> widget. First, you should specify the name of the new custom field. After this, you should enter the value. For instance, the name of your custom field can be \u201cLocation,\u201d<\/strong> and the value can be \u201cNew York.\u201d<\/strong> After this, click Add Custom Field<\/strong>.<\/p>\n This information will be stored in the custom fields meta box. If you need to edit this custom field, you can change the necessary information and click Update<\/strong>. You can also delete your custom fields anytime you need it.<\/p>\n Once you\u2019ve created a new custom field, the information is saved as metadata. You still need to display it in your theme so that your website visitors can see it. To show your custom fields in a WordPress theme, you can edit the files of your theme.<\/p>\n Find the theme that you want to edit. Ideally, you will display the custom field on a single-post page. In this case, you need to edit the content-single.php or single.php file. You should add custom fields code to the WordPress loop.<\/p>\n Search for a line that looks as follows:<\/p>\n You need to add new code before this line:<\/p>\n Here is code that you should add:<\/p>\n Keep in mind that you must replace the key with the name of your custom field. For instance, the code for the custom field that we\u2019ve created in the first step will look like this:<\/p>\n Now you can save changes and check out how your post looks online. You can also use this custom field with your other posts, as well. Create a new post or edit a post that you already have in your blog. Go to the Custom Fields<\/strong> meta box, choose the necessary custom field from the dropdown menu, and enter the necessary value.<\/p>\n When editing WordPress posts, you may not see all the existing custom fields. The thing is that WordPress only shows 30 custom fields by default. If you\u2019re already using custom fields in some themes and plugins, the chances are that these custom fields will appear in the dropdown menu first. Therefore, if you create a new custom field that isn\u2019t used yet, it might appear at the end of the list and you won\u2019t see it.<\/p>\n You can fix this problem by editing the functions.php file of your theme. Add this code:<\/p>\n This code will limit the number of custom fields in the dropdown menu to 60. If it doesn\u2019t help, you can simply increase this number again.<\/p>\n As you can see, you need to select the necessary custom field and to enter its value every time you publish a new post. This is certainly not the best solution if you\u2019re dealing with many custom fields and if your website has multiple contributors.<\/p>\n It would be much more convenient to have a user interface where everyone could enter the necessary values of custom fields by using a simple form. Many WordPress plugins already perform this exact function. For instance, a popular plugin All in One SEO Pack has a custom meta box for an SEO title and meta description.<\/p>\n The Advanced Custom Fields plugin can also be used. This plugin enables you to add new custom fields to your posts and to edit them with no coding knowledge.<\/p>\n First of all, you should install the Advanced Custom Fields<\/strong> plugin. Activate the plugin. After this, go to Custom Fields > Field Groups<\/strong>, and click the Add New<\/strong> button. Field groups contain sets of custom fields. By using field groups, you can add multiple panels with different custom fields. Enter the title of a new field group, and then click the Add Field<\/strong> button.<\/p>\n You can add names for your custom fields and choose field types. You can use the Advanced Custom Fields<\/strong> plugin to create different types of fields, including numbers, text, dropdown menus, image upload features, checkboxes, etc.<\/p>\n You can also scroll down and change many other features of a particular custom field according to your requirements. Now you can find a new panel with custom fields in the content editor when creating or editing posts.<\/p>\n Now you know how to create custom fields and how to show them in your theme. However, there\u2019s no point in displaying a custom field if it\u2019s empty. You can modify the code to only display custom fields that actually have some data in them. For example, here\u2019s what such code will look like when dealing with our Location custom field that we\u2019ve created before: Keep in mind that you will have to replace \u201cLocation\u201d with the name of your custom field.<\/p>\n You can reuse the same custom field in the same post, entering different values. To do it, you just need to select the necessary custom field again and to enter another value. However, the code that we used above will only display one value.<\/p>\n If you want to show multiple values in a custom field, you will need to change the code so that it will return data in the form of an array. Below is the code that you should add: Keep in mind that you will need to replace \u201cLocation\u201d with the name of your custom field. You may have noticed that in this code, we\u2019ve switched the last parameter of the get_post_meta function to \u201cfalse.\u201d This parameter determines whether or not the function will return a single value. When this parameter is switched to \u201cfalse,\u201d the function can display data as an array.<\/p>\n Sometimes, bloggers need to publish a guest post but don\u2019t want to create a new user profile for a single post. You can do it easier by including the guest author\u2019s name in a custom field. Add the below code to your theme’s functions.php file:<\/p>\n First, the function will check the guest author\u2019s name. If the name exists, the existing author\u2019s name will be replaced with the new name. Now you just need to edit your post\u2019s meta box to include the necessary name as a value of the guest_author field.<\/p>\n Quite often, blog posts may have multiple contributors. However, WordPress doesn\u2019t enable you to include several authors for the same article. Fortunately, you can add contributors as custom fields. Start editing the post with multiple contributors, scroll down to the custom fields meta box, and create a \u201cco-author\u201d field with the necessary names. To show co-authors in your theme, add this code to the theme files:<\/p>\n To separate the names of contributors with commas, you can use the following CSS code:<\/p>\n All the tips above will help you display custom fields inside the WordPress loop. However, you may also want to display them outside the loop. For example, you may want to include them in a sidebar of a particular post. In this case, use the following code: Don\u2019t forget to replace \u201ckey\u201d with the name of your custom field.<\/p>\n Custom fields can be used in various situations. For instance, you can use them to display the names of multiple contributors or to include virtually any other type of information. To display custom fields in your WordPress theme, you will need to use examples of code from our guide. However, you can also install a custom field plugin and work with a simple user interface.<\/p>\n We hope that our tips will help you use custom fields to adjust your WordPress website to your specific needs and to improve its design. If you know any other useful tips, please leave your comments below!<\/p>\n Also Read:<\/strong><\/p>\n Learn to Migrate Your Joomla Website to WordPress<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n2. Showing Custom Fields in WordPress Themes<\/h3>\n
<?php while ( have_posts() ) : the_post(); ?><\/pre>\n
<?php endwhile; \/\/ end of the loop. ?><\/pre>\n
<?php echo get_post_meta($post->ID, 'key', true); ?><\/pre>\n
<p>Current Location: <?php echo get_post_meta($post->ID, 'Location', true); ?><\/p><\/pre>\n
3. If You Cannot Find a Custom Field in the Drop-Down Menu<\/h3>\n
add_filter( 'postmeta_form_limit', 'meta_limit_increase' );\r\nfunction meta_limit_increase( $limit ) {\r\nreturn 60;\r\n}<\/pre>\n4. Making a User Interface for Custom Fields<\/h3>\n
5. Creating Custom Fields with Advanced Custom Fields<\/h3>\n
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<\/p>\n6. Using Conditional Statements to Hide Empty Custom Fields<\/h3>\n
\n<\/p>\n <?php\r\n$location = get_post_meta($post->ID, 'Location', true);\r\nif ($location) { ?>\r\n<p>Current location: <? echo $location; ?><\/p>\r\n<?php\r\n} else {\r\n\/\/ do nothing;\r\n}\r\n?><\/pre>\n7. Adding Multiple Values to the Same Custom Field<\/h3>\n
\n<\/p>\n<?php\r\n$location = get_post_meta($post->ID, 'Location', false);\r\nif( count( $location ) != 0 ) { ?>\r\n<p>Current location:<\/p>\r\n<ul>\r\n<?php foreach($location as $location) {\r\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 echo '<li>'.$location.'<\/li>';\r\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 }\r\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 ?>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<?php\r\n} else {\r\n\/\/ do nothing;\r\n}\r\n?><\/pre>\n8. Adding a Guest Author\u2019s Name<\/h3>\n
add_filter( 'the_author', 'guest_author_name' );\r\nadd_filter( 'get_the_author_display_name', 'guest_author_name' );\r\nfunction guest_author_name( $name ) {\r\nglobal $post;\r\n$author = get_post_meta( $post->ID, 'guest-author', true );\r\nif ( $author )\r\n$name = $author;\r\nreturn $name;\r\n}<\/pre>\n9. Showing Contributors to an Article<\/h3>\n
<?php\r\n\r\n$contributors = get_post_meta($post->ID, 'co-author', false);\r\nif( count( $contributors ) != 0 ) { ?>\r\n<ul class=\"contributors\">\r\n<li>Contributors<\/li>\r\n<?php foreach($contributors as $contributors) { ?>\r\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <?php echo '<li>'.$contributors.'<\/li>' ;\r\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 }\r\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 ?>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<?php\r\n} else {\r\n\/\/ do nothing;\r\n}\r\n?><\/pre>\n.contributors ul {\r\ndisplay:inline;\r\n}\r\n.contributors li {\r\ndisplay:inline;\r\nlist-style:none;\r\n}\r\n.contributors li:after {\r\ncontent:\",\"\r\n}\r\n.contributors li:last-child:after {\r\ncontent: \"\";\r\n}\r\n.contributors li:first-child:after {\r\ncontent: \":\";\r\n}<\/pre>\n10. Showing Custom Fields Outside the WordPress Loop<\/h3>\n
\n<\/p>\n<?php\r\nglobal $wp_query;\r\n$postid = $wp_query->post->ID;\r\necho get_post_meta($postid, 'key', true);\r\nwp_reset_query();\r\n?><\/pre>\n
Wrapping Up<\/h3>\n