Introduction to Custom Metaboxes

Comments

1. Bill Erickson says

   April 22, 2011 at 6:15 pm

   @ Charlie, it’s a recommended coding practice in WordPress to prefix everything. If you install a plugin or theme that uses the custom field “project_text” you could have some bad interactions. By creating your own prefix you minimize the chances of using the same field name (what’s the chance someone created a field called be_project_text or crm_project_text).

2. Artin H. says

   April 29, 2011 at 12:46 am

   Hey Bill,
   First of all thank you for this great plugin/code.

   I just installed it on one of my themes and it works great.
   I do have one question.
   I created a field (‘type’ => ‘textarea’) and I need to add some HTML code in the textarea and I need the html code to do something in the front end. However, the code gets displayed in text-format.

   Example:
   I have the following ul list

   item 1
   item 2
   item 3

   I need this to be displayed as an unordered list in the front-end. But what I get is the code displayed in text-format.

   I know I have the option of changing the field type to ‘wysiwyg’, but I need to create several custom fields in “page” view and I would prefer if they were ‘textarea’ instead of ‘wysiwyg’.

   Please let me know if this is possible and if yes, how would I go about doing it.

   Thank you in advance.

   Best,
   Artin H.

   • Bill Erickson says

     April 29, 2011 at 2:06 am

     When rendering it on the frontend, you’ll have to use the html_entity_decode() function. Ex:

     $embed = get_post_meta($post->ID, ’embed’, true);

     echo html_entity_decode( $embed );

3. Artin H. says

   May 1, 2011 at 1:16 am

   Thank you Brill.
   Everything looks great.

4. Artin H. says

   May 21, 2011 at 1:40 am

   Hey Bill,
   I’ve been using your code and it’s working great. Thank you very much.
   I do have one question. In one of my themes, I have added a ‘Radio button’ with two values: Yes/No

   array(
   ‘name’ => ‘Radio inline’,
   ‘desc’ => ‘Please choose Yes or No’,
   ‘id’ => $prefix . ‘test_radio’,
   ‘type’ => ‘radio_inline’,
   ‘options’ => array(
   array(‘name’ => ‘Yes’, ‘value’ => ‘Yes’),
   array(‘name’ => No’, ‘value’ => ‘No’),
   )
   ),

   How would I check for the value?
   Depending on the value, I’m going to either show something or not.

   Here is how do the an if/else statement when it’s a regular field or a textarea:

   if ( get_post_meta($post->ID, ‘cmb_xyz’, true) ) :
   echo get_post_meta($post->ID, “cmb_xyz”, true);
   endif;

   But I’m not sure how to check for the value of a radio button.

   If the value is “Yes” show this
   else show nothing

   Thank you in advance.

   Best,
   Artin H.

   • Bill Erickson says

     May 21, 2011 at 4:24 am

     To answer your specific question, you would do it like this:

     
$test_radio = get_post_meta($post->ID, 'test_radio', true);
if ($test_radio == 'yes')
echo 'Yes';
elseif ($test_radio == 'no')
echo 'No';


     Instead of using a radio with Yes or No, I’d rather use a checkbox. Then you could just check to see if the custom field has a value.

5. Artin H. says

   May 21, 2011 at 6:00 pm

   Great, working perfect.
   Also, thanks for the “checkbox” suggestion, that makes more sense.

6. Charlie Chauvin says

   May 25, 2011 at 11:30 pm

   Bill,
   Just curious, I’ve been really enjoying the Custom Meta Boxes, but noticed that the ‘wysiwyg’ option is a little more limiting than the WordPress default where you can insert an image within the text and/or toggle the HTML view. I understand why you would do this, but is there a meta box option that could would include these like the wordpress?

   Thanks.

   • Bill Erickson says

     May 26, 2011 at 5:19 am

     I don’t think it’s possible to duplicate the WordPress post editor with the media library. Even if you could add the media library to the alternate WYSIWYG, it would require some serious customizations to the media library to make the image not automatically inserted into the main post editor instead of your alternate one.

     If you need the full WordPress editor I’d recommend finding a way to use just the post editor instead of an additional WYSIWYG. For instance, if you’re trying to do multiple content columns, use a content filter or shortcode.

7. trish says

   June 5, 2011 at 9:53 pm

   thanks so much for this! I love how elegantly it works. I have a question though. I’ve created two custom fields, one for first name & one for last name. I’ve also hidden the post title from the editor. Now I would like to combine the first name & last name fields to give me the post title, such that it would replace WP’s post title field. (Right now, the way I have it set with the post title field hidden in the editor, I am getting ‘Auto Draft’ in the listings in the admin.) I think I need to set up another field that combines both the first name & last name but I’m unsure how that would be set up in the function with the arrays or how it would insert into the Post Title field. Does that make sense? Thanks again!

   • trish says

     June 5, 2011 at 10:06 pm

     As a followup, it looks like if I can name one of the fields post_title, then combine first name & last name fields, that might do the trick: http://wordpress.stackexchange.com/questions/12056/automatically-set-post-title-to-same-value-as-a-meta-box
     I’m still not sure how to implement it within the array.

     • Bill Erickson says

       June 7, 2011 at 8:48 am

       It’s beyond the scope of this post, but there should be a way to hook into the post title when the post is saved (hook = save_post) and use your post meta like this:
       $title = $first .’ ‘. $last;

       • trish says

         June 7, 2011 at 11:50 pm

         Thanks so much for pointing me to the right direction. For any of your readers who may be interested in the solution, this is what worked for me:

         add_filter(‘title_save_pre’, ‘save_new_title’);
         function save_new_title($people_title) {
         if ($_POST[‘post_type’] == ‘people_profiles’) :
         $fname = $_POST[‘_fname’];
         $lname = $_POST[‘_lname’];
         $fnamelname = $fname.’ ‘.$lname;
         $people_title = $fnamelname;
         endif;
         return $people_title;
         }

         I really appreciate your help and the custom metaboxes!!

         • Steven Querry says

           July 16, 2011 at 4:02 am

           Hello Trish,

           I would love to be able to accomplish this as well. However I’m new to all of this. I have 5 meta boxes I would like to put together to make the title. I think I’m following along till you get to the first $fname. Could you provide further? I tried this with no luck to start:

           add_filter(‘title_save_pre’, ‘save_new_title’);

           function save_new_title($vehicle_title) {
           
if ($_POST[‘post_type’] == ‘vehicle’) :

           $vehicle_year = $_POST[‘vehicle_year’];

           $vehicle_color = $_POST[‘vehicle_color’];

           $vehicle_yearvehicle_color = $vehicle_year.’ ‘.$vehicle_color;

           $vehicle_title = $vehicle_yearvehicle_color;
           
endif;
           
return $vehicle_title;

           }

           In my create metaboxes action I have a prefix of “sq_” – does that need to be included in the above script? Also where does this add_filter go? Does it need to be nested with my create_metaboxes or create_my_post_types?

           Thank you so much for you help…

           • Bill Erickson says

             July 16, 2011 at 1:56 pm

             I’m sorry, I don’t have any experience editing the title on save so I can’t help. But why edit it there? Allow the user to construct the title however they want and then on the frontend add the vehicle year and color before displaying the title.

8. trish says

   June 6, 2011 at 4:17 pm

   Hi Bill,

   I have another question regarding the image file upload field. I don’t know if I’m doing something wrong but it doesn’t seem to be working. I’ve got the other fields set up correctly and are being entered and saved properly. I didn’t do anything but copy and paste the code from example-functions file. The field itself is showing up in the editor; the issue is that when I click on ‘Upload File’ button, nothing happens. Am I missing something? I’m working off my localhost so I don’t know if that has something to do with it.

   Thanks again!
   Trish

   • Bill Erickson says

     June 7, 2011 at 8:48 am

     I’m not sure if the image upload one is working yet. I remember Jared Atchison looking into it. You can try contacting him: [email protected]

     • Vayu Robins says

       June 16, 2011 at 9:28 am

       Hi.
       Trish did you mail Jared about the file upload function?
       Bill, do you know if this function is working yet?

       Vayu

       • Bill Erickson says

         June 18, 2011 at 6:48 am

         I’m out of the country so haven’t been keeping up with the CMB development, but my understanding is that it isn’t working at the moment. What I would use is the default media uploader, then once uploaded copy the image url and paste it in a text field.

         • Mike says

           June 19, 2011 at 3:38 pm

           Well I think I found one senario:

           If you name your theme like “My Theme”, it is not posible to access the jquery.cmbScripts.js file and you will get a 403 message.

           Name your theme always without spaces, remove the space or use underscore: “MyTheme” or “My_Theme”, because it’s space sensitive!

           Good Luck 😉

   • Bruce says

     June 16, 2011 at 12:05 am

     Trish,
     Did you ever find a solution to the image file upload field?
     I have the exact same issue. I too am running on localhost (XAMPP).
     I have discovered in Firebug that there is a 403 access error on the file – jquery.cmbScripts.js?ver=3.1.3.
     I have emailed Jared and am trading emails with him now on it
     Thanks

9. Paul de Wouters says

   June 9, 2011 at 3:20 pm

   Bill

   what if I want one set of fields for a CPT, and another set of fields for pages?

10. Danny G Smith says

    June 27, 2011 at 5:35 pm

    Anyway, I need to have multiple uploads, and it looks like the are being stored as a two dimensional array in the meta fields so it should be possible, but I am not sure how to get it to work in the front-end. is there something that is intuitive that I am missing? The way I am doing it is uploading the file first using the upload box, coping the url, pasting it in the box again, and then it is there below with links to remove, etc. If I try to duplicate the steps again, it appears to replace the first one with the current. By the way, I am going to post this on Bill’s blog as well, in case you see it there first.