Comments on: Control your own WordPress custom fields

By: Steve Taylor

Steve Taylor — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 15:42:00 +0000

I’ve not restricted the code to one category before, but it should be doable with some digging around with the $post object. The only thing is that of course you wouldn’t be able to display them until a post is created (and the category set).

By: Stephen

Stephen — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 15:37:42 +0000

Hey Steve, Sorry to bother you once again!

I’ve created all the fields I want, but now all the fields show on every post-page.php. I’ve tried a whole bunch of combintions using the scope, but can’t seem to get them to work. I tried creating new scopes and just adding page-new.php?cat=3 to the if statement but that doesn’t seem to work….

I would really appreciated it if you could give me an example of how I could make the custom fields appear for only one category. What can or should I be looking for that makes each page unique. In your instructions you talk about showing fields for only certain page templates but I really need it to work by category.

I’ve used a plugin called “Category Write Panels” so in my left hand menu I have a list of all my Categories each with there own “Edit” and “And New” links.

Please help :(

Thanks for your time in advance

By: miklb

miklb — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 00:31:40 +0000

Steve, thanks for the quick reply. I’m not sure of the ramifications, but I simply commented that line out and haven’t received either error again in testing. I’m also not sure of the ramifications of not using a prefix, and just using the existing custom fields I had, but otherwise, it’s a great example of code, and perfect for what I had originally set out to accomplish. Cheers!

By: Steve Taylor

Steve Taylor — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 00:24:30 +0000

miklb, I’ve not seen this error before. Autosaves should be excluded as per the note at the end. I developed this code on 2.8, and actually I’ve not tried it on 2.9 yet (the client wants to stick to 2.8.6 until they have to upgrade due to security). Maybe an issue with 2.9? I’ll post if I run into the same thing when I upgrade—let me know if you solve this.

By: miklb

miklb — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 22:05:32 +0000

Very nice tutorial, and just what I was looking for. One problem I’m seeing is that I’m getting a “Undefined index: my-custom-fields_wpnonce” as well as a header already sent warning. Not sure if it’s happening on an autosave or not. The undefined index is happening on the second reference to the wpnonce. Using 2.9.1.1. Any tips appreciated.

By: Steve Taylor

Steve Taylor — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 11:16:37 +0000

Stephen, glad this code helped you out! I don’t know the More Fields plugin, but if it just managed standard custom fields, this code should be able to take those fields over if you add them to the $customFields array. The standard WP custom fields box is designed to output anything that’s been set for the current post (as long as it’s not hidden using the underscore prefix). The output of the above code is governed by what fields you’ve pre-defined—it really came about as a result of my wanting to control the fields that a client used. So, you have to manually specify which fields are to be managed.

If More Fields stores anything outside the standard WP custom fields system, you’ll have to whip up some kind of PHP export / import script.

By: Stephen Heyes

Stephen Heyes — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 01:49:40 +0000

I can’t explain how excited I was to find a solution for a big conflict I was getting using the plugins More Fields & Adminimize!!! So thanks very much!

I just pasted the code as you said and Voila!!! It worked!! I now have a second custom fields box :)

Now I will admit I’m new to php but have enough knowledge to get this workign so far :) but if I ask something really dumb I do apologizes.

So my 1st question would be. How can I use your code to pull or update all the custom fields I’ve already setup with the more More Fields plugin? I’ve deactivated it, and I can see all the date in the standard custom fields box used by wordpress, I was hoping that if I created the same fields, named them the same in the array they would show..

My 2nd qustion, if there isn’t a solution to my 1st question, and i have to go and transfer all the date into the new custom field box added by your code, what code would I use to extract the info I need into my theme template?

Below is an example of the code I was using to get the info when using the More Fields plugin….

$value ) echo $value; ?>

Hope you can help, thanks for your time in advance!

By: Csabbencs

Csabbencs — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 21:41:15 +0000

My mistake. Thanks, Steve. Now, I just don’t understand myself why I thought of putting it in the core function.php when I totally agree with you that the core should not be touched unless someone wants to go mad when upgrading. :)

By: Steve Taylor

Steve Taylor — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 18:49:35 +0000

Csabbencs, as stated in the post, this code goes into the functions.php file of a customized theme. If you're not happy customizing themes, it's not for you---check out the plugins mentioned. If you are, put the code into /wp-content/themes/[your-theme]/functions.php. I've altered the post to emphasize this more, it seems to be a common mistake for people to put theme code into /wp-includes/functions.php. As a general rule, you should never alter WP core files like this. All customization should be via themes and plugins. If you need some customization that can't be done with these, then... well, if you've decided that, you probably know what you're doing and it's nice that WP's core is open. But generally---leave WP core code alone :-)

By: Csabbencs

Csabbencs — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 15:32:12 +0000

Hi, I got this: Fatal error: Call to undefined function add_action() in … \wp-includes\functions.php … I have PHP 5.3.0. Could you please help? I copied the ‘full code’ part without any change into functions.php.