WordPress Custom Content
Rick Tuttle, Papasoft @ricktuttle
Refresh South Florida + WordPress
September 8, 2011

Hi There

Rick Tuttle

• Father of Bloggers: papasoft.com
• Miami is my hometown: MiamiFunGuide.com
• Musician/Songwriter: Video: one of my songs

Connect

rick@papasoft.com

@ricktuttle

Old Dog. New Tricks.

Times and Technologies Change

HTMLCSSJAVASCRIPTPHPMYSQLASP.NETC#RAZORSQLSERVER JAVAAPACHELINUXAGILETOMCATIISPERLSMALLTALKBASICDOS

• Technology is a tool
• Focus on business and the customer
• Perfection is overrated and too costly

Competitive Edge

I need to be fast, affordable & adaptable. That's why...

I ♥ WordPress

Been together since 2005

• Easy to use & intuitive
• Flexible: themes, plugins, hooks
• Community!

WordPress = Content Management

WordPress Database

Simple. Extensible. Not over-engineered.

Built-in Post Types

Posts

• Time-sensitive: blog-style, articles, events
• Taxonomy: Categories/Tags

Pages

• Static content
• Hierarchical

Also: Attachments, Revisions, Menu Items

Back In The Day

Custom Content Hacks

• Custom fields (post_meta)
• Parent pages
• "Special" categories

Since Version 2.9/3.x

Lots of Choices

• Custom Post Types
• Custom Taxonomies
• Post Formats
• Custom Menus
• Short codes

Custom Post Types

Features

• Add your own post_type to the posts table
• Query/filter on that post type
• Add custom fields just for that post type
• Will NOT show up in RSS Feed! (without hacking)

Usages

Listings, Employees, Products

Custom Taxonomies

Create categories or tags that apply only to a particular post type

• Can be used with posts, pages or custom post types (nice!)
• Query/filter based on your custom taxonomy

Custom Post Types: Plugins

Plugins

• Custom Post Type UI
• WP Easy Post Types

Example Plugins

• TBTestimonials
• CalendarPress
• WooThemes: SupportPress, FaultPress, Listings

Custom Post Types: DIY

Create a plugin or add code to your theme's functions.php file.

1. Register your CPT
   register_post_type()
2. Register custom taxonomy (optional):
   register_taxonomy()
3. Add meta boxes for custom fields:
   add_meta_box()
   add_action('add_meta_boxes', 'my_meta_box')
   
4. Add code to save your custom fields:
   add_action('save_post', 'my_save_method')

Template Hooks

• single-{post_type}.php
• taxonomy-{taxonomy}.php, taxonomy-{taxonomy}-{term}.php
• WP_Query('post_type=products')
• WP_Query('post_type=employee&department=finance&employment_status=fulltime')

Post Formats

Customize the Display of Posts

• Used on regular old WP Posts
• Theme hooks allow you to customize the display
• 10 Post formats available and you CANNOT add more
• Formats: aside, gallery, link, image, quote, status, video, audio, chat
• They DO show up in RSS Feed

Examples

• Matt Mullenweg: ma.tt
• Vertigo Theme: vertigodemo.wordpress.com
• Esquire Theme: esquiredemo.wordpress.com
• Shelf Theme: demo.thethemefoundry.com/shelf-theme

Best Practices

• Try to use Post Formats, Categories and Tags before using Custom Post Types
• To work with different themes, either create a plugin or modularize your code
• Use taxonomies for data that can be assigned to different pages/posts. Easier to query/filter than using custom fields.
• If you have to create custom fields, make sure you store post_meta that needs to be queryable in distinct values (i.e., don't serialize into one field)

More Info

• This presentation and resource links: papasoft.com