How to Create Custom Fields in WordPress with ACF
WordPress provides a simple, accessible platform for users to create their own content and customise websites to their liking. For those who are a little savvier, there’s the ability to add custom fields to enhance the functionality and potentially give WordPress sites a unique edge. Doing this with Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) allows you to store extra data in WordPress to pull into posts, pages and other custom post types.
What is Advanced Custom Fields?
Advanced Custom Fields is a WordPress plugin that acts as an interface for customising WordPress websites beyond what’s available in the core software. A popular choice for developers and site-builders, it allows users to add their own fields to customise pages and posts, making them more powerful and kickstarting creativity.
ACF is powerful and also pretty straightforward to use. This guide will take you through how to add fields with ACF in WordPress and begin customising your website.
How to Create Custom Fields with ACF
To get started, head to your WordPress dashboard and select Plugins > Add New. Search ‘Advanced Custom Fields’ in the top right and install the plugin by selecting ‘Install Now’ and ‘Activate’.
Once activated, the plugin will be available in the WordPress admin area, making it easier to access. On the left-hand sidebar, find ‘Custom Fields’ and select ‘Add New’.
At this stage, you’ll be asked to provide some details. These could include:
- Field Group Title: This can be anything but should contain the key field or customisation you’re creating.
- Location Rules: At this stage, you can select where the custom field is used by stating a post type, page template or user role.
- The Field Label and Field Name: These will appear on your post, page or user profile, so think about wording that’s concise and informative.
- The Field Type:This defines what type of field or data you’re requesting. Options include text, checkbox and password.
Once you’ve filled out the essential details, hit ‘Publish’ – and the custom field will become available right away, without needing to refresh the page.
Advanced Settings
If you want to customise the options available for the field, such as the list of items you want to appear in a select list, click on ‘Advanced’.
From here you’ll be able to adjust multiple settings, such as adding/editing your field’s ‘choices’ (for multiple choice fields) or setting the default option.
When making changes, be sure to save the field group. For the changes to appear on your website, you’ll need to update the post or page.
More Tips for ACF set up
When making custom fields with ACF, it’s important you understand all the available settings available. The ‘Field Group’ section is also under your control, and can be used to organize related fields, such as adding all custom fields for a particular post type in one section.
There is also the ability to clone fields and make changes across them, as well as adding rules, so that fields are rendered depending on certain conditions. This can require some more advanced knowledge, but the ACF website provides help guides and a support forum, to help users through any issues they may have.
Conclusion
Using ACF to create custom fields in WordPress is a great way to make your websites more functional, allowing you to store more data and access it on posts, pages and other custom post types.
Just remember to stick to a logical field group setup and make sure you familiarise yourself with the available settings and field types. With the help of these tips, you’ll be creating custom fields quickly and easily.
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