How to Create A Custom WordPress Meta Box Instead of Using WordPress Custom Fields

Before you begin reading, you might want to read Take Your WordPress Meta Box to the Next Level. This PHP class will let you create meta boxes fast with the flexibility you need as a developer. Full documentation walks you step-by-step. Create custom WordPress Meta Box UI elements for your projects with ease.

Creating a custom WordPress meta box lets you make clean UI elements for you and your clients. The default WordPress custom fields are functional, but IMHO, and if you can pull it off, using a WordPress meta box is the way to go. It will give your project that professional touch.

This WordPress meta box tutorial will show you how to quickly add a clean UI for some custom fields. You will even learn how you can hide these fields and prevent them from appearing in the custom fields area.

Getting Started with WordPress Meta Boxes

The code for your meta box will pretty much go in one of two places: in a plugin file or in your functions.php file. This tutorial will cover the latter (for those of you creating plugins, you will be able to adapt the code for your use as well). I like tutorials with code examples and lots of comments, with that said, lets dive right in:

I recommend that you download the sample files or cut + paste the code and markup below in the appropriate places as indicated. There are three sample files (you will also need to create a folder and name it custom):

/current_theme_folder/functions.php
/current_theme_folder/custom/meta.php
/current_theme_folder/custom/meta.css

/current_theme_folder/functions.php file:

<?php
 
define('MY_WORDPRESS_FOLDER',$_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT']);
define('MY_THEME_FOLDER',str_replace("\\",'/',dirname(__FILE__)));
define('MY_THEME_PATH','/' . substr(MY_THEME_FOLDER,stripos(MY_THEME_FOLDER,'wp-content')));
 
add_action('admin_init','my_meta_init');
 
function my_meta_init()
{
	// review the function reference for parameter details
	// http://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/wp_enqueue_script
	// http://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/wp_enqueue_style
 
	//wp_enqueue_script('my_meta_js', MY_THEME_PATH . '/custom/meta.js', array('jquery'));
	wp_enqueue_style('my_meta_css', MY_THEME_PATH . '/custom/meta.css');
 
	// review the function reference for parameter details
	// http://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/add_meta_box
 
	// add a meta box for each of the wordpress page types: posts and pages
	foreach (array('post','page') as $type) 
	{
		add_meta_box('my_all_meta', 'My Custom Meta Box', 'my_meta_setup', $type, 'normal', 'high');
	}
 
	// add a callback function to save any data a user enters in
	add_action('save_post','my_meta_save');
}
 
function my_meta_setup()
{
	global $post;
 
	// using an underscore, prevents the meta variable
	// from showing up in the custom fields section
	$meta = get_post_meta($post->ID,'_my_meta',TRUE);
 
	// instead of writing HTML here, lets do an include
	include(MY_THEME_FOLDER . '/custom/meta.php');
 
	// create a custom nonce for submit verification later
	echo '<input type="hidden" name="my_meta_noncename" value="' . wp_create_nonce(__FILE__) . '" />';
}
 
function my_meta_save($post_id) 
{
	// authentication checks
 
	// make sure data came from our meta box
	if (!wp_verify_nonce($_POST['my_meta_noncename'],__FILE__)) return $post_id;
 
	// check user permissions
	if ($_POST['post_type'] == 'page') 
	{
		if (!current_user_can('edit_page', $post_id)) return $post_id;
	}
	else 
	{
		if (!current_user_can('edit_post', $post_id)) return $post_id;
	}
 
	// authentication passed, save data
 
	// var types
	// single: _my_meta[var]
	// array: _my_meta[var][]
	// grouped array: _my_meta[var_group][0][var_1], _my_meta[var_group][0][var_2]
 
	$current_data = get_post_meta($post_id, '_my_meta', TRUE);	
 
	$new_data = $_POST['_my_meta'];
 
	my_meta_clean($new_data);
 
	if ($current_data) 
	{
		if (is_null($new_data)) delete_post_meta($post_id,'_my_meta');
		else update_post_meta($post_id,'_my_meta',$new_data);
	}
	elseif (!is_null($new_data))
	{
		add_post_meta($post_id,'_my_meta',$new_data,TRUE);
	}
 
	return $post_id;
}
 
function my_meta_clean(&$arr)
{
	if (is_array($arr))
	{
		foreach ($arr as $i => $v)
		{
			if (is_array($arr[$i])) 
			{
				my_meta_clean($arr[$i]);
 
				if (!count($arr[$i])) 
				{
					unset($arr[$i]);
				}
			}
			else 
			{
				if (trim($arr[$i]) == '') 
				{
					unset($arr[$i]);
				}
			}
		}
 
		if (!count($arr)) 
		{
			$arr = NULL;
		}
	}
}
 
?>

/current_theme_folder/custom/meta.php file:

<div class="my_meta_control">
 
	<p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Cras orci lorem, bibendum in pharetra ac, luctus ut mauris. Phasellus dapibus elit et justo malesuada eget <code>functions.php</code>.</p>
 
	<label>Name</label>
 
	<p>
		<input type="text" name="_my_meta[name]" value="<?php if(!empty($meta['name'])) echo $meta['name']; ?>"/>
		<span>Enter in a name</span>
	</p>
 
	<label>Description <span>(optional)</span></label>
 
	<p>
		<textarea name="_my_meta[description]" rows="3"><?php if(!empty($meta['description'])) echo $meta['description']; ?></textarea>
		<span>Enter in a description</span>
	</p>
 
</div>

/current_theme_folder/custom/meta.css file:

.my_meta_control .description
{ display:none; }
 
.my_meta_control label
{ display:block; font-weight:bold; margin:6px; margin-bottom:0; margin-top:12px; }
 
.my_meta_control label span
{ display:inline; font-weight:normal; }
 
.my_meta_control span
{ color:#999; display:block; }
 
.my_meta_control textarea, .my_meta_control input[type='text']
{ margin-bottom:3px; width:99%; }
 
.my_meta_control h4
{ color:#999; font-size:1em; margin:15px 6px; text-transform:uppercase; }

If you’ve set everything up correctly you should see the following meta box in a edit post or edit page screen:

WordPress Custom Meta Box

Using The Meta Box Values In Your Template

Being able to create the values is just the first part, now you need to do something with those values. Most likely you will be displaying the values in your post or page templates.

Remember that the example above uses a single variable (_my_meta) to store values as an array, so when you get the meta value back from WordPress it will be an array and you will have to access the values using array syntax. Doing this is pretty straight forward:

1
2
3

$my_meta = get_post_meta($post->ID,'_my_meta',TRUE);
echo $my_meta['name'];
echo $my_meta['description'];

The global $post variable should always be available, but here are some other methods you can use to get the current post or page ID which you will need to use with get_post_meta():

// using $post global variable
echo $post->ID;
 
// get a page by its path (recommended over using a page ID)
$page = get_page_by_path('company/contact-us');
echo $page->ID;
 
// if you are working in the loop
echo get_the_ID();

The above code and markup will help you produce clean UI elements for your next WordPress project. Like any tutorial, consider this a starting point for you to do great things. I hope you’ve enjoyed!

Tagged as: intermediate, meta box, WordPress

{ 57 comments… read them below or add one }

Rio April 22, 2010 at 8:32 pm

how to echo this to my theme function?

Dimas April 22, 2010 at 9:36 pm

To test out the code above, the easiest thing to do is to download the sample files and give it a try, you’ll get the hang for how it works and you will be able to modify it to your liking.

Christopher B April 29, 2010 at 8:53 pm

Elegant code and works properly on page or posts, but no luck with Custom Post Types in WP 3.0. Changed foreach (array('post','page') as $type) to foreach (array('feature') as $type) . Then the metaboxes only showed up on that custom post type which is great. But when I enter in the fields text, after clicking save it does not save. Changed if ($_POST['post_type'] == 'page') to if ($_POST['post_type'] == 'feature') as but still no luck. Also tried adding: // check autosave if (defined('DOING_AUTOSAVE') && DOING_AUTOSAVE) { return $post_id; } but still no luck.

Desperately trying to figure this out before tomorrow morning, but will stay up all night til I get it. Thanks in advance!

Cheers,
Christopher

Christopher April 30, 2010 at 4:27 am

Tried installing on the latest version of WP 3.0. Works for Posts but doesn’t seem for custom post types. Changed ==page to == the name of my custom post type. Have it set to only show the boxes on that post type, and everything appears to work but when you enter in data it does not save. Tried adding do not autosave as this article recommends but still no luck. Any ideas anyone? http://osdir.com/ml/wp-testers/2010-03/msg00205.html

Tom April 30, 2010 at 5:37 pm

Hi,

I have everything set up looking perfect in the add page section of the site, but how do I get the value to show up in my template?

I’m trying: echo get_post_meta($post->ID, ‘_my_meta’ true);

Which echo’s “Array” in my template.

Any guidance would be very much appreciated.

Dimas April 30, 2010 at 9:27 pm

Tom, the the current setup I propose above, does use an array … so as you’ve noticed when you echo an array it outputs “Array” … to inspect the variable you can try:

print_r(get_post_meta($post->ID, '_my_meta',TRUE));

In your template you would do the following:

$arr = get_post_meta($post->ID,'_my_meta',TRUE);
echo $arr['var'];

Thanks for the comment, I will update the post above with further info to make this how to complete.

Tom May 1, 2010 at 12:49 pm

Perfect, thanks a lot man!

Luke May 2, 2010 at 6:01 pm

I’m trying to get the meta data to display and right now it is showing nothing. Data saves and updats in post. When I print_r the results, I get a 1. Any idea what I might be dong wrong.

$arr = get_post_meta($post->ID,'_my_meta',TRUE); echo $arr['link'];

By the way, does it make a difference if I have set up a custom post type (events).

Dimas May 2, 2010 at 9:11 pm

Luke, I assume you are using WordPress 3.0 (beta). I did a test install, setup a custom post, and tested the code above … all seems to work.

I assume you can see the meta box in the post admin area, you probably already updated the following line:

foreach (array('post','page','events') as $type)  ...

Things to check: make sure you are getting the correct “post_ID”, you might also check the “wp_postmeta” table and confirm that the “_my_meta” key is being set for the post.

Luke May 3, 2010 at 7:45 am

Dimas,

Thanks for the reply. I did get this working using WP 3.0 Beta 1 (current version of nightly build). I checked the DB for _my_meta and it was there along with checking the post_ID being correct.

I ended up having to call the global $post;. So in the events template:

global $post; $arr = get_post_meta($post->ID,'_my_meta',TRUE); echo $arr['link']; echo $arr['description'];

Thanks again for the reply. This is by far the cleanest, organized and easiest way I’ve found to accomplish this. I’ve had luck with other methods but again, this is much more friendly way of doing it. Great post!

Luke May 4, 2010 at 5:05 pm

(I hope this doesn’t submit a numerous amount of times, it didn’t appear to show up initially.)

Dimas,

I’m not sure if you have used Gravity Forms (www.gravityforms.com) before or not. It is the best thing out there for forms and even lets you create a post by submitting the form info into custom posts. I have this working with the exception of it posting the custom fields into the “User Friendly” way you’ve provided in this post. I wanted to pick your brain to see what you might suggest as to what the custom field value may be (4 screenshots below to help)

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2557221/0-form-setup.png
Gravity Form Setup – This allows the post to submit a custom field. What would I set the custom field value as?

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2557221/1-form-preview.png
Form Preview – You can see the fields and the values being set.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2557221/2-added-to-events.png
It’s been added to “Events” – After submitting, it shows it posted to the Events Custom Posts.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2557221/3-custom-fields.png
Custom Fields View – This shows the custom fields being set as shown, although not in the “User Friendly” area you’ve demonstrated here.

Thanks in advance for any thoughts you might have. I really appreciate it!

donalyza May 5, 2010 at 7:40 pm

Hi! Is there a way to show customized meta-boxes UI on each category?

For instance.

Category 1
custom_field 1
custom_field 2
Category 2
custom_field 1
custom_field 3

Dimas May 5, 2010 at 10:36 pm

Luke, as you’ve read with the above tutorial, I find it easier to: use a single variable, submit data via array notation, and save/use an array into the wp_postmeta DB table.

I haven’t used Gravity Forms before, but by looking at your screenshots it appears as if it would be best to enter in the custom field names individually (meaning you would not have one custom field name to store all the data).

Certain parts of the code above would need modification, primarily the my_meta_setup function (to get the individual name/value pairs) and the my_meta_save function (to save the individual name/value pairs).

Before posting this tutorial I was using a similar setup, where I used one-to-one name/value pairs for my custom fields, but that setup got a little cumbersome for me pretty quickly, so i tried to simplify and that is what you see above.

If you need some samples of my old code I can send it to you, just email me at dimas3 [at] farinspace [dot] com

Dimas May 5, 2010 at 10:40 pm

Christopher, your post got marked as SPAM by Akismet (I apologize for not seeing it sooner), I hope you’ve gotten what you needed working! Let me know otherwise…

Dimas May 5, 2010 at 10:46 pm

Donalyza, I don’t see why you couldn’t have dynamic meta boxes and/or dynamic fields. You could have certain fields be displayed or hidden based off certain post properties, in this case categories:

So, following the tutorial above, in your /current_theme_folder/custom/meta.php file, you could use the following to display certain fields when the post is assigned to certain categories:

< ?php if (in_category('category-slug',$post->ID)): ?>
HTML
< ?php endif; ?>

I hope I’ve understood your question correctly and that the above helps you.

donalyza May 6, 2010 at 8:09 am

Thank you! I was able to make it to work. You just made my day.

Christopher Beckwith May 6, 2010 at 11:36 am

Dimas,

Thank you for the reply. Actually, still experiencing the problem. When I follow your instructions for custom meta boxes on WP 3.0 for the normal post type, works perfectly. When I use it for a custom post type I created, all the boxes show up however when I enter in information into a metabox and click save, the content in those boxes disappear. I can post some code, but first is their anything off the top of your head that might cause this, that I should for first? Thanks Dimas!

Dimas May 6, 2010 at 12:47 pm

Chris, I’ve made some modifications to the code above in the functions.php file, so try the latest and see if that works for you…

Christopher Beckwith May 6, 2010 at 1:51 pm

Thanks for the update. I updated to your new code, but it still does allow me to save in the boxes unfortunately. Also with the new code, now when I try to save in a normal post that does not work either. Where is before that did work, and it only didn’t work in custom post types. I have you functions.php code at the end of my own functions file for the site. I pasted the part of the file that relates to the issue: http://pastie.org/949123 If you get a chance maybe you can see where I’m going wrong, or point me in the right direction. To note, on this line foreach (array(‘post’,'work’,'page’) as $type) I only left post and page for testing, but I will ultimetly only wanting the metaboxes to show on the work post type. So foreach (array(‘work’) as $type) Thank you!

Christopher Beckwith May 6, 2010 at 1:57 pm

Actually, now I’m thinking maybe the problem is in my meta.php file. I created names for each field but now sure if I did it properly. http://pastie.org/949140

Christopher Beckwith May 6, 2010 at 2:08 pm

I think I’m definitely over quota on posts here today. But I noticed in the meta.php file I uploaded, I misspelled ‘url’ as ‘u’. Fixed that but still no luck. And tried you meta.php unchanged and still no luck on saving. Thanks again in advance. I’ll keep trying different things here to see if anything works. So close!

Dimas May 6, 2010 at 2:16 pm

Chris, I used your Pastie code for functions.php and meta.php and was able to get it working as expected.

Your last variable _my_meta[url] has a small typo: _my_meta[u]

try the following to see where the saving function is failing: http://pastie.org/949174

Christopher Beckwith May 6, 2010 at 2:45 pm

It’s good to know it’s working for you at least as the problem must lie else where in my code. (where I haven’t been looking!).

I had fixed the typo prior but no luck. check1,check2,check3 all where echoed as well as the rest of the code. http://pastie.org/949220

The last line however said Warning: Cannot modify header information – headers already sent by (output started at /dev/wp-content/themes/mytheme/epanel/custom_functions.php:465) in /dev/wp-includes/pluggable.php on line 887

To note: 465 is echo “check-1″ the start of the function my_meta_save

Does this mean I am using that same function name somewhere else? Your debugging tip certainly is pushing me in the right direction.

Cheers

Christopher Beckwith May 6, 2010 at 3:01 pm

Now this is odd, so I tried changing the function name: my_meta_save to my_meta_saves in both locations. And it worked! Then I tried putting them both back to my_meta_save and it still works. Even after emptying my cache several times. I have no idea if using the debug script once, or changing the function name once somehow refreshed something or what. So strange, but looks like I’m good now. Thank you for sticking it out with me. If I can figure out exactly what fixed the issue I’ll be sure to post for other readers.

Christopher Beckwith May 6, 2010 at 5:25 pm

Now that I have been able to save meta box data successfully due to the dedicated help of Dimas I needed to figure out how to display the inputs in the template. The code above by Luke worked perfectly in WP 3.0b2. Everything is finally working as it should.

Luke May 7, 2010 at 6:31 am

Dimas,

Thanks for the reply and advise.

What you said makes perfect sense of why I wouldn’t be able to set valued pairs. Also, as you mentioned, the setup other ways is very cumbersome. Since then, I’ve managed to build a pretty nice Events Custom Post page (thanks to your code) to replace using Gravity Forms. Still use GForms in many other ways.

I appreciate your willingness to offer up your old sample code.

Christopher Beckwith May 7, 2010 at 7:48 am

The problem seems to be back. That is I was adding several new posts in my custom post type each were letting me save to the new meta boxes, then all of the sudden the next one I created it stopped working. Didn’t change any code. Tried emptying browser cache, restarting etc. It’s so odd. I will try running your debug script above even though that technically shouldn’t fix it, but did last time some how. Very odd.

Christopher Beckwith May 7, 2010 at 8:18 am

Figured out the issue. When I create a new post it works, I was editing posts I had already created prior to whatever change I made to the code that resolved it. (maybe the misspelling of the “url”. Thanks again!

Luke May 7, 2010 at 9:34 am

Dimas,

What would be a good way to add multiple meta boxes (e.g. Required Info, Optional Info)?

I’ve done this with your script by adding a second custom.php called custom2.php. It’s the same script I just had to change some function names and nonce name (e.g. my_meta_init to my_meta_init2).

I played a bit with adding another add_meta_box and including the other custom2.php. I’ll mess around more later but I thought I would get your thoughts if possible on how to possibly reference one custom.php file and have the ability to add multiple meta boxes by including different files under my_meta_setup (or some other function).

Kathy May 10, 2010 at 7:50 pm

This works great! Thanks for sharing. I am trying to implement the conditions on the meta.php file. Do you have an idea what condition I’d use to limit the meta boxes to pages of a certain template?

Normally I’d use if_is_pagetemplate(‘template.php’) but the admin page itself is not actually using the template in question. Maybe I need to pull the meta data in the template field and use that?

Dimas May 10, 2010 at 9:18 pm

Kathy, in your my_meta_init function you can try the following:

$post_id = $_GET['post'] ? $_GET['post'] : $_POST['post_ID'] ;

$template_file = get_post_meta($post_id,'_wp_page_template',TRUE);

if ($template_file == 'home.php') { ... }

or in your meta.php file you can try the following (note that the $post var is available in the meta.php file):

$template_file = get_post_meta($post->ID,'_wp_page_template',TRUE);

if ($template_file == 'home.php') { ... }

Kathy May 11, 2010 at 12:04 pm

Adding the condition to the my_meta_init function worked great. Thanks again!

btw- have you seen this tut: http://www.deluxeblogtips.com/2010/05/howto-meta-box-wordpress.html

your 2 tuts have helps immensely on this subject.

Dimas May 11, 2010 at 1:04 pm

Great, I’m glade it worked out for you and thanks for the link.

Similar to that tutorial, my next update to this series of meta box articles will include a easy helper class for creating one or many meta boxes.

Christopher B May 13, 2010 at 9:10 am

In the latest nightly build they have changed how cutom post types are registered which I am told will break current 3.0 versions.

http://wpdevel.wordpress.com/2010/05/13/earlier-this-week-nikolay-committed-a-c/

Could you do follow up code on how to make your code work with the updated version of 3.0? I’ll also try taking a stab on it on my own tonight.

Dimas May 17, 2010 at 10:24 am

Chris, thanks for the info. I’ve updated my local dev version of wordpress and all still seems to work OK.

Additionally, I’ve developed a helper class for creating meta boxes, see: Take Your WordPress Meta Box to the Next Level

Christopher B May 17, 2010 at 11:17 am

Excellent, thanks. You da man. =)

Louisa June 10, 2010 at 10:01 pm

Thanks so much for a brilliant tutorial!!! I’ve followed it to the letter and got it all working… only the text fields in the admin area are only 170px wide and I can’t fathom out how to make them wider!!!!
I’ve created the path…

wp_enqueue_style('my_meta_css', wp-folder/theme folder . '/custom/meta.css');

perhaps I’ve completely messed this up? I’ve tried alternative paths without success!

Louisa

Dimas June 10, 2010 at 10:30 pm

@Louisa, If you haven’t already checked out my latest code WPAlchemy_MetaBox do take a look, it improves upon this tutorial tremendously …

as for your CSS you may want to try something like this:

if (is_admin()) wp_enqueue_style('custom_meta_css',TEMPLATEPATH . '/custom/meta.css');

TEMPLATEPATH is a wordpress constant (remember it as it is a useful one) …

Louisa June 11, 2010 at 7:33 pm

Thanks for the super fast reply!!! I used the WPAlchemy_MetaBox code and it’s brilliant! Everything works perfectly! Thank you so much!

Thanks again!!!
Louisa

Louisa June 11, 2010 at 9:18 pm

Hello again!!!!! Sorry to ask another question!!!

What’s the best way to add images using the WPAlchemy meta boxes?
I’m adding this file path…

to meta.php

ImageOne

<input type="text" name="the_name(‘imageOne’); ?>” value=”the_value(‘imageOne’); ?>”/>
Add the first image here

and to my post_template.php

the_value(‘imageOne’);?>

I’m getting the image in my meta boxes which is fine but it’s a little difficult to delete!

Thanks!!!!!

Louisa June 11, 2010 at 10:12 pm

Oh, the above didn’t quite come out properly! Sorry! Hope this makes more sense!

Included in single_template


the_value('imageOne');?>

Included in meta.php
Top Image


<input type="text" name="the_name('imageOne'); ?>" value="the_value('imageOne'); ?>"/>

Add image one here

The image code added to the custom meta box

Dimas June 13, 2010 at 9:26 pm

@Louisa, my recommendation for letting users add images is to direct users to use the default wordpress media upload feature. In the meta box you then basically ask to a URL of the image.

I personally find that this helps the end user get familiar with the default features of wordpress and how they work.

However, there may be cases where you want to create an “upload” form field and have a user select a file to upload. In these cases you will need to modify the “save” function to handle the uploaded file (put it in the correct directory and such).

Louisa June 15, 2010 at 3:22 pm

Thanks Dimas!!!! I was doing something really really weird before which is why I mentioned the image being difficult to delete!!
Adding sections of information into Wordpress is now so much easier!
Thanks again!

Louisa June 18, 2010 at 4:28 am

Hello! It’s Louisa again! Sorry to pester AGAIN but I was wondering if it’s at all possible to have a wysiwug html/visual editor field right bang smack in the middle of the meta boxes rather than being perched on top of the page?

For example… say I want list the meta boxes like so
1. “add heading here” meta box
2. “add introduction here” meta box
3. “add image here” meta box
4. THEN have the wysiwug html/visual editor field here.
5 .”add another image here” meta box

Thanks!!
Hope you have a brilliant weekend!

Dimas June 18, 2010 at 11:18 am

Louisa, great question, you’ve inspired me to write an article about it:

How to Move and Position The WordPress WYSIWYG Visual Editor

Louisa June 18, 2010 at 3:37 pm

And it’s an absolutely brilliant article!!! Thanks!!!!!!
Louisa

Eduardo June 30, 2010 at 6:20 am

Hi mate,

Congrats on the work! Let me ask you a question, is it possible to control where add_meta_box will fire?

For example, I have a category called Events and another one called News, I have an events area created with magic fields and a plugin.

I want a certain metabox to appear only on the Events (new and edit) posts.

If you could clarify anything to me I will be very pleased.

Thanks a lot Dimas

Dimas June 30, 2010 at 7:45 am

Eduardo, Be sure to check out my WordPress Meta Box PHP class, there is a filtering section which will let you filter by categories.

Alex July 8, 2010 at 7:52 am

Dimas:
Great tutorial!
I was wondering if you could give me some tips on how to have a rich text editor on textareas inside the metabox. Maybe extending the built-in tinyMce that already appears on the default editor?

Tyler July 8, 2010 at 1:15 pm

Dimas,
Great tutorial! With the data being serialized in the database, is there anyway to delete a single value from the array? I tried using wordpress’ delete_post_meta function, but I’m officially stumped! thanks for any help/guidance!

Tyler

Dimas July 9, 2010 at 10:59 am

Tyler, as you’ve already noticed, the code uses an array to store its data. The my_meta_clean() function will clean that array when items are deleted (are emptied). For instance: when you clear the data from a form field the array will be cleaned.

I am going to be working on a new version of the WordPress Meta Box PHP class which will allow the developer to choose how the data is stored, via an array or via the classic WordPress name/value scheme.

Vengeance Industries July 14, 2010 at 8:52 pm

You need to add add_action('edit_post','my_meta_save'); to the my_meta_init function. That will save changes.

Dimas July 14, 2010 at 9:24 pm

Keep in mind that edit_post action gets fired on post/page edit and on comment add/edit … here is what WordPress says about edit_post:

“Runs when a post or page is updated/edited, including when a comment is added or updated”

I believe the save_post hook is the correct action to use in this case.

Pete July 17, 2010 at 10:00 pm

That’s EXACTLY what I’m after… thanks so much

PSD to HTML August 17, 2010 at 2:11 pm

This is just awesome! I created a custom post type but I also wanted to have specific information included and I searched and searched and couldn’t find anything that worked. Until your tutorial! Works perfectly! Thank you very much!

One thing though I took out the wp_enque_style for the meta.css as it wasn’t working and just did a link to the style sheet in the meta.php file. Works like a charm.

Also to Christopher B – A big thanks to you as well – u ran into some issues I was having i.e. defining the post type and after reading all your comments (lol) i got it to work. Nicely done.

Noel Madali August 22, 2010 at 11:47 pm

Hey Dimas,
In what way is it possible to import meta data using CSV format?
I took a look at the SQL backend and saw that it makes an array in the meta field and I am not sure of a plugin that could do something like that.

I do recall a CSV importer but I dont believe it does meta data..

Dimas August 23, 2010 at 6:57 am

Noel, I think the default WordPress export/import functionality will work with wp_postmeta data as well.

If you were to write a plugin to do this, it shouldn’t be too hard either, you basically would have to select * from a table and write it as a CSV file with PHP. Unfortunately I don’t know of anything that would do this easily for WordPress.

If you can’t find anything ready available you mighty be able to do it with phpMyAdmin as a data export, additionally I use Navicat for MySQL and it has options to export MySQL tables as CSV and the like.

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