[Plugin: Custom Content Type Manager] Custom fields vs. Front-end editor – how to make custom fields

Making the CCTM work by itself is difficult. Making it work with other plugins can be almost impossible. It’s highly unlikely that other plugins are going to support editing of custom fields at all, and they certainly won’t support the customizations that the CCTM offers. The short answer is this: “stay away from front-end editors”.

ok, will do ??

Thanks for your answer

I was going to ask a question similar to this. But I have a more specific question…

I notice there’s already a decent template generator for making templates to DISPLAY data for a content type.

Wouldn’t it be extremely helpful to have a template generator that makes templates for displaying submission forms for the content type? That way all you have to do is setup your content type, generate the template, create a new page front-end page called Submit <MyContentType> or whatever you want to name it, and then choose respective page template. Makes it a snap to get going with a front end.

A second question I have is in regards to the current template generator for viewing content type. I notice it doesn’t generate very nice code. If it were me, I would block the labels and field values together in DIVS and assign CSS to the div so that its a snap to modify the whole display of data without ever having to touch the html. Basically, the DOM needs improvement so that it better reflects the content relationships. I am thinking about looking under the hood and seeing what it will take to modify the template generator. If I improve the DOM generation to something better, would you be interested in me contributing it to the project?

Re creating forms for the front-end, yes, that would be helpful, and that’s already a feature request: https://code.google.com/p/wordpress-custom-content-type-manager/issues/detail?id=132 — if you’ve got a paying gig, I can prioritize development.

Re the template code, you can look at the formatting template: tpls/samples/single_post.tpl. Is that what you mean? You can override this formatting tpl by putting a copy inside wp-content/uploads/cctm/tpls/samples (just like all other templates).

My thought here is that the user can and should touch the HTML. One of the big architectural limitations of WordPress is that it puts so much code in the views that it quickly becomes difficult to maintain: it tries to do too much stuff for you and it undoubtedly fails when you do a lot of customizations. A site’s data model can be highly customized, so the presentation of that data must be equally customized.

So my goals here were to present a plausible demonstration and leave the customizations to the user (who presumably knows better what he wants better than any automated process).

Also note that the custom field samples are dependent on the output filters used: so the examples here aren’t straightforwardly generated. I.e. if you change the default output for a field or you make it repeatable, the sample code changes. See the docs on extending the CCTM_OutputFilter class (the get_example() function): https://code.google.com/p/wordpress-custom-content-type-manager/wiki/CustomOutputFilters or take a look at how the examples are generated by the classes in the filters/ folder.

All that said, if you have some code you’d like to see in the sample templates, then file an issue in the issue-tracker and share your code there and I’d be happy to look at it: https://code.google.com/p/wordpress-custom-content-type-manager/issues/list

Found this in controllers/template_single.php:

* Manager Page -- called by page_main_controller()
 * Show what a single page for this custom post-type might look like.  This is
 * me throwing a bone to template editors and creators.

So how about I make the bone tastier?

And also, what about a form submission BONE for front-end submissions and edits (as I already asked)? ??

Feel free to edit that or make suggestions, just please do it in the bug tracker. Also, I misspoke — this template cannot currently be overridden.

Re front-end submissions, see my previous comment;

Re creating forms for the front-end, yes, that would be helpful, and that’s already a feature request: https://code.google.com/p/wordpress-custom-content-type-manager/issues/detail?id=132 — if you’ve got a paying gig, I can prioritize development.

Also, look at this feature request:
https://code.google.com/p/wordpress-custom-content-type-manager/issues/detail?id=170

The idea is that you can make your theme however you want, include the .cctm.json file and the CCTM will detect it and put together all your fields and post-types. That may be more what you’re looking for.

If you’re after the manager, take a look at https://code.google.com/p/wordpress-custom-content-type-manager/wiki/CustomizingManagerHTML

I posted responses to both of those comments you linked me to.

Now… where do you want me to make posts if I have questions about the existing code framework?

The bug-tracker is to track the to-do items, bugs, feature requests etc, but general conversations are best suited to the forums.

Just be sure that you haven’t misinterpreted the subtleties of the problems that various components of the CCTM have solved — if you feel that the problems were solved incorrectly or should in a different way, just make sure you understand the subtleties of the problems — sometimes the solutions differ from what you’d expect because the underlying realities re-frame the problems in unexpected ways ??