WP Engine is continuous to put money into Superior Customized Fields (ACF) and with the launch of ACF 6.2, we’ve bought some actual goodness to share right now!
Bidirectional Relationship Assist
In the event you work with ACF lengthy sufficient, you finally encounter a use case the place you need to wire up one thing often known as a bidirectional relationship between two fields. Which means when a content material editor modifications a relationship subject in opposition to one piece of content material, it routinely updates the connection within the different path for the linked piece of content material.
If that sounds a bit complicated, let me provide you with an instance!
Say you might have an internet site that showcases and ranks the highest 100 movies from the best decade of cinema, aka the 90s! (Bonus content material right here from our DE{CODE} session the place we stroll by means of this challenge for actual!).
On this web site, you need to create relationships between the completely different movies and their administrators. For “causes,” you might have each movies and administrators arrange as separate customized publish varieties.
What you need to do now’s that at any time when a brand new movie is added, and the director is chosen, (from a relationship subject) then over on the related director, the movie is routinely added as properly. This two-way connection saves vital editorial time, retaining the connection between the 2 content material items (movie and director) routinely in sync.
Whereas ACF has lengthy been used for this kind of factor, it has, till now, required both customized code or using a third-party plugin. ACF customers have for a few years been asking for native help, and with model 6.2 this week, we lastly have it!
Try the video beneath for a way straightforward it’s to arrange.
In order for you a deeper look, this current ACF Chat Friday’s session with Iain Poulson will provide you with a strong walkthrough of the way it works!
BTW, for those who agree with me that Steven Spielberg’s Hook is one of the best movie of the 90s, right here’s a coupon for 4 months of WP Engine internet hosting free of charge!
Choices Web page Registration UI
Carrying on with the theme of natively enabling in style performance, model 6.2 of ACF PRO allows you to register, configure, and handle your customized Choices Pages inside the UI. Once more, that is one thing customers beforehand relied on customized code for.
Choices Pages are an unknown characteristic for some ACF customers, so let me break them down for you. Once more, with our superior 90s movie web site, we need to embody a easy top-of-the-page call-to-action banner on the entrance finish for customers to vote for his or her favourite movie.
Now we need to edit the textual content and button of this CTA and toggle it on and off primarily based on the allowed voting window. A handful of textual content and boolean fields make this pretty easy, however this CTA bar is site-wide, not tied to a selected publish or web page. It’s these sorts of site-wide fields that belong in choices pages.
All the pieces from CTA banners to website colours, fonts, and different website settings might be delivered to the WordPress person by means of a number of customized Choices Pages. I’ve talked to many companies through the years that present their shoppers with wealthy world configuration choices through Choices Pages.
Evidently, what as soon as needed to be performed by means of code, can now be performed within the app UI itself. Try this quick demo beneath.
The Choices Pages characteristic is barely out there in ACF PRO.
And Extra!
The 6.2 launch is full of different options, enhancements, and bug fixes. Try the launch publish from the crew and the total changelog to study extra, and take a look at the video beneath to study extra about a number of the new, and perhaps lesser identified, issues you are able to do with ACF.
Develop your WordPress and ACF Abilities
ACF is central to the way in which so many construct with WordPress, and our developer advocate crew is investing increasingly more into occasions and content material to allow you to succeed. If you wish to develop as a WordPress skilled, try our Builders neighborhood. Loads of ACF goodness is ready there for you!
