The hidden advantage of WordPress Custom Fields

I’m not one to rewrite the book when someone has already done a fantastic job, so this is a short post to introduce you to a WordPress feature that most people are unaware of. This is the WordPress feature called custom fields.

Custom Fields enables you to expand your options for what you can include in posts and their content. Things that the WYSIWYG editor that is in your Write Post area doesn’t provide itself. By customizing WordPress itself to enable you to this, it’s more convenient as you don’t need to leave that area to add your new content.

And as you are doing it using a WordPress function, your changes should transfer easily over when you update the software, which when you make manual changes, they may not, as WordPress will overwrite some pages.

If you use the fantastico update function, you may be unsure when it gives you a message to only do this if you have not made modifications. Generally speaking – and there are always exceptions when code writers mix code – but generally, if you have modified a theme or modified functions of WordPress using the software itself, these changes will not be overwritten as they are protected in dedicated folders for this purpose.

Only if you edit the core code of WordPress itself should your changes be at risk of loss. To be safe either way, always keep that backup link handy so if you do run into problems, you have the option to reverse the changes and recover.

Many people use WordPress “out of the box” so to speak, some never bother to even change their theme. Of those that do – they choose a theme and use it as it is, without delving into the code to make it more suitable for them. There is nothing wrong with that. A blog was designed to be simple enough to use this way. KISS is a fine ambition.

Many people never install a plugin or even update their software once it’s installed. Again, there’s no problem, a blog is an easy website and if all you need to do is add text – then I’m all for it.

But just as there are mobile phone users who only use the dial out and answer functions of their phone, there are people who take learning the new functions of their phone in their stride and enjoy the benefit of photos, music, movies, mobile blogging and all the other joys of upgraded multi function mobile phones.

If you are the type of blogger who likes to explore and use different settings and functions, then custom fields for WordPress will appeal to you. Visit this link to find out more about it and see if you would like to add these functions to your blogs using custom fields. To take it further head on over to the codex.

http://www.redswish.co.uk/the-power-of-wordpress-custom-fields/

These few examples of custom fields include adding a subtitle, meta tags, and accessing thumbnails and pictures.

Maybe that doesn’t sound radically life changing when written so simply, but when you read the post itself, you’ll begin to see that WordPress custom fields are not limited to these few examples. Use your imagination and leave me a comment if you have tried something new and want to show it off. I’d love to see it.

As a side note, this blog (referred to above) also has a discussion going on about the new chrome browser from Google. I think I’ll stick to firefox for now, but it bears watching. People are saying its very fast and clean so far. Somehow I like the variety of choice different browsers offer, I like to be surprised to find something new and interesting that I didn’t exactly search for – so long as what I did search for is there too. The current Google is the master of this and in my opinion doesn’t need improving. (Except perhaps to make it easier to get my own sites on the first pages more easily! )

http://www.redswish.co.uk/google-set-to-launch-browser-called-chrome/

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 30th, 2008 at 6:04 am and is filed under How To Use Wordpress. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.