WordPress Custom Fields
What is a custom field?
A custom field is simply a way to add the same type of information to some or all of your WP posts. Just as all posts can currently have a title, category and tags, as well as content, you might choose to add custom fields to show your mood, the music you're listening to, the deal of the week on your ecommerce website or the filename of a thumbnail picture you want to display with your post.
Many plugins also utilise custom fields: for example, if you're running the Sociable plugin to allow your readers to share your posts via social media, you'll see "sociableoff" as an custom fields option - unsurprisingly, it allows you to switch off Sociable for individual posts.
How to set custom fields
Let's take a simple example: I want to add my mood to each post. The Custom Fields section is towards the bottom of the Add New Post page.
To add a new custom field, put the field key, e.g. "mood", in the "name" box, and the value, e.g. "cheerful", in the "value" box. Click the "add custom field" to save.
Adding a new custom field
If you've previously set a custom field, the name will appear in a drop-down list in the Custom Fields section. So for your next post, "moods" will already be available, and you can just add your new mood to the value box.
Using an existing custom field in a new post
How to show custom fields in your posts
Here's the simplest way to get a custom field to show in your posts. Just add this code to your theme where you want the custom field information to show:
<?php $my_custom_field = get_post_meta($post->ID, "mood", true);
echo "<p>Mood: ".$my_custom_field."</p>"; ?>
"mood" in the first line within the double quotes should be the name of the custom field you want to show (but make sure you preserve the quotes).
Find out more about using custom fields from the WordPress Codex.
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Tags: custom fields, NPGtWP, Skribit
Which file in the theme? Thanks.
Hi Robert,
Thanks for the comment. It depends on where you want the information to show up (and also on how your theme's put together). If it's for the single post page, then normally that's single.php; if for the home page, probably index.php; if for search results pages, search.php etc. etc.
Let me know if that doesn't answer your question.
Is there any way to make custom field values, clickable? Tags and categories are clickable, if you tagged your post with FOOTBALL, by clicking on FOOTBALL, it would bring up all posts associated with that.
Can the same be done with custom fields?
Hi Angie,
Thanks for that great question
The short answer is yes, this can be done: you'll need to use a custom query though. More details on the Codex -
http://codex.wordpress.org/Displaying_Posts_Using_a_Custom_Select_Query
If you know some PHP, it's pretty straightforward. If you *don't* know any PHP and would like some help fixing this for your site, give me a shout.
Thank you!
Is it possible to put in an if statement to only display if the custom field exists? I suspect it's possible, but don't know enough PHP to do so... Could you help me out?
Hi Emi
Yes, you do it like this:
<?php if(get_post_meta($post->ID, "mood", true)): ?>
the stuff you want if "mood" is defined goes here - can be HTML, PHP, or anything else you like
<?php endif; ?>
Perfect, thank you!
Clean, concise explanation. Thank you.
I want to create PayPal buttons using custom field information. Do you think this is possible? Every item gets one post. I include data such as price, color, product ID, etc. I modify the page that displays the post. All my stuff would look neat and tidy because most of the placement is handled by CSS. At least that is my theory.
Hi Cindi, yes, it's certainly possible - if you get the button code from the PayPal website, you can modify that so that you pass the custom fields needed back to PayPal as the customer clicks the button. If you know a little HTML/PHP, it's not difficult.
Thanks Sue. I found another site more specific to Paypal and creating buttons. Just have to figure out how to do it with using my email address.
http://profitphp.com/2009/02/make-paypal-buttons/#comment-6867
Hi Sue,
My wife is a photographer and I use a custom theme I purchases because I'm not great with CSS or PHP. I know precious little html and I know programming and coding basics - but thats about it.
The default wordpress theme (used to be called Kubrick I think) displays post categories at the end of each post, and the categories and other meta information are clickable links. The theme I'm using (Photocrati Emulsion) removes this detail and I've concluded so far that Custom Fields is how I'll probably need to accomplish this. The goal by doing this is enhanced SEO.
Am I on the right track? If so, is there an easy way to do this using custom fields in each post? Do I have to modify PHP files at all? There is no 'single.php' file with this theme. I poked around the couple of php files that do exist and there is nothing within them that alludes to what I'm after.
Thanks in advance for any help or direction!
All the best,
Andrew
Hi Andrew,
You're not really on the right track, sorry. Categories are just a template tag - the_category() and tags are the_tag() - you don't need custom fields for either. You'll need to modify a theme file to get them to show up, yes - I'm not familiar with that particular theme, but if there's no single.php, then (assuming that there are single posts somewhere) the file you'll need to edit might be index.php. Back-up, then have a play; if it all goes horribly wrong, you can put your back-up back.
Just to let you know, I've been trying to figure out how to do this for a few days now. I've run across about fifty different tutorials on the web, and copied and pasted every bit of code I could find, tweeking it to suit my custom fields, and yours is the first one that's worked. So. You've just become my "go to gal" for coding
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