Custom ACF layout – formerly full of custom post type “banners”

Hi Dave,

thanks for reaching out.

I am not yet sure I understand your whole workflow. Your site admin construct pages. Is that comparable like using page builders with ready-to-use blocks and you are now asking if there is an “ad” block available?

If your setup allows using shortcodes or PHP code, you could use the “Manual” placement. It is kind of a placeholder where you can later decide which ad or group to use without changing the whole setup again.

Thomas

Thank you Thomas. I am already using custom placement (in the header) and it works exactly as expected, I love it!

I will try to clarify where my confusion is.

Admin users create the Home Page and a news Page (both use extremely similar templates) where they can choose what appears in each “block” of content. It’s similar to a Masronry setup, but it’s not masonry, it’s just my custom template that uses ACF behind the scenes. A single “block” would have the following items for the admin to choose: “Post Object”, “Size”, and “Type” (Type is this is so that the CSS and PHP can handle different content appropriately: Videos, Articles, or Banners)

The confusion I have regards the fact that the layout options are extremely flexible. There could be one block for an Ad, there could be none, there could be 23…. and each of them could be told to be a different size (1/3, 1/2, or 100%) In a row of 3 1/3 Blocks, they might want two to be content, and one to be ad. They may want all three to be ads.

I think I could figure it out if the admin had select a specific ad in each block, but I’m not sure I can visualize a solution so that the ads are from a group.

I think I get closer to understanding the issue.

It is more about them choosing a block of a specific size, but not the ad content itself?

If all ads have the same size (1/3, like a block) you could define multiple ad groups. One that displays one ad, another that displays two, then one with three at the same time. We would only need to figure out how your admins choose from these groups.

Does that bring us any further?

Thomas

I think that does give us a possibility. I will see about implementing that technique to the templates and report back when complete.

Hi Thomas, I am having an odd issue trying to insert the ads to my feeds, perhaps you can give me a suggestion.

I have started setting up areas for ad groups to be placed, and if I supply an exact ad group post ID to a container like this:

the_ad_group(191);

It works, and that group’s ads display as expected.

However, if I feed it an ACF value, which is literally the same value (via an Advanced Custom Fields text or number key) like this:

the_ad_group(the_sub_field(‘feed_aap_group’));

the result of that sub_field query is “191”…. what happens is I literally just get the number 191 echoing on the page where the ads should be.

Any help is appreciated!

Hi flipty,

yes, I think I know what causes this.

the_sub_field displays the value. Use get_sub_field instead, which should just return the value to the function.

Thomas

*slaps own forehead* — I don’t know why I didn’t try that. Thank you! Works like a charm.

Hi flipty,

just wanted to check in if you need more help or we can close this ticket. You can open a new one anytime.

Have a great weekend.

Thomas

I think let’s close it. Thank you for your fantastic support, Thomas!

Great.

> Thank you for your fantastic support

Thank you. Would you mind saying it here?

Thomas

I already have ??

Thanks so much!