Custom fields in WordPress are a very useful tool for adding additional information to your posts or pages. You can create custom fields for any type of content in WordPress, such as posts, pages, products, or custom content types³.
To create custom fields in WordPress, you can do so by editing or creating a post or page. At the top in the screen options (“classic” view), you can see the custom fields section. In the block editor (Gutenberg), you will have to activate its appearance in the editor's advanced options.
In WP Help there is an excellent introductory article to custom fields in WordPress, I recommend it if you are a beginner.
One of the features that is missing in the free version of ACF is a type of field that we call a repeater field.
You can create your own custom fields using two different methods. The first method involves installing a dedicated plugin to simplify the process (there are several, pods, toolset, the well-known ACF and the one we are going to discuss here).
The second requires you to manually edit your WordPress theme files. You can register fields and boxes (forms in the backend) to enter them via PHP. In the technical language of WordPress, we also call these fields meta fields, and what the inputs where we enter them become, metaboxes or meta fields.
The most popular and most widespread field management plugin at a professional level is Advanced Custom Fields (ACF). It is so powerful and versatile that it allows almost certain projects to appear created with another CMS other than WordPress.
ACF has a free version, with limited features, and another paid professional version, with advanced fields and more tools to optimize them, create our own "site builders", etc.
The free version of ACF is very good and I highly recommend it to start messing around, and even for certain professional projects it is more than enough. But one of the features that is missing in the free version of ACF is a type of field that we call repetition fields or "repeater".
The repeater is an extraordinarily useful field; basically, it allows us to insert into a page or post a list of elements, the length of which we do not know. That is to say, some data, which may not be present in some content, may be six in another, or twenty-six in another. Some examples:
- A list of links related to the post or page
- A list of items or ingredients
- A list of images for a gallery
- A list of social networks (after all, it is a list of links)
With "simple" fields, we can add many boxes, but in a future use, they may fall short, or worse: It may not be necessary for there to be so many boxes in the backend. With repeatable fields, we can add this data one by one as needed, and also, another very useful thing, we can reorder this list of elements.
The entries in a repeater are returned in array format, making them very easy to obtain.
Well, this is where we are going to present the "Custom Field Suite" plugin, a free custom field manager, which unlike ACF free, which does not include repeaters, this one does.
If you are considering purchasing an ACF license for your freelance projects, this open source alternative is a much more modest adversary, but extremely functional at the core.
The operation is very similar to ACF in simplicity: We create groups of fields, we assign the content type to them, and to display the data in the front there is a simple API to display each value or collection.
Custom Field Suite official page on Github pages
Note: Its creator already warns that he does not sell anything nor does he intend to make more types of fields, he himself indicates with a sense of humor "If you want all the bells-and-whistles, use ACF" (if you want all the bells and whistles, use ACF)
Addon update! Although you can create a gallery using custom field suite and a file upload loop, I have discovered this interesting Free addon to attach an image gallery that it be returned in a more comfortable array.
Recommended links:
(1) Custom fields in WordPress: What they are, how they are created and how to…. https://ayudawp.com/campos-personalizados/.
(2) How to use Custom fields in WordPress. https://bing.com/search?q=campos+personalizados+en+WordPress.
(3) How to Add Custom Fields in WordPress (2 Methods) – Hostinger. https://www.hostinger.es/tutoriales/campos-personalizados-wordpress.
(4) WordPress Custom FIELDS, What They Are And 15 Plugins – Ignacio Santiago. https://ignaciosantiago.com/campos-personalizados-wordpress/.
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