Custom post-types are incredibly useful when developing custom WordPress environment. In essence, in allows one to generate a specific post-type (i.e. Products or Songs) that can easily be called throughout a WordPress site. For example, one could create a post-type called Products that can be called edited separate from posts and/or pages which can help keep content entry simple and organized.
Lets explore how one would generate a new custom post-type. Traditionally, one would need to edit the functions.php file located in their theme to generate a custom post-type. However, this method although is a bit outdated. Today, users have a much more user-friendly method to generate post-types using a plugin called Custom Post Type UI which can be downloaded here. The plugin allows for a user to very easily create, edit, and manipulate a custom post-types. Let’s say we have a music blog and want to have a custom post-type for songs…
- Download and install Custom Post Type UI through the “Add New” plugin feature in your WordPress admin panel
- Click on the Custom Post Type tab generated on the right hand side of the your admin panel after plugin install
- Click “Add new”
- Fill out the fields – for music example – Post Type Name: songs; Label: Songs; Singular Label: Song; Description: This is where you enter new songs to be featured on your site!
- Ignore the options for now unless you are an advanced user
- Click on “Create Custom Post Type”
- And you’re done!
To call your custom post type simply the below loop in your theme file. Be sure to replace the bold areas with your information.
<?php $loop = new WP_Query( array( 'post_type' => 'your_custom_post_name', 'posts_per_page' => 10 ) ); ?>
<?php while ( $loop->have_posts() ) : $loop->the_post(); ?>
<?php the_title( '<h2><a href="' . get_permalink() . '" title="' . the_title_attribute( 'echo=0' ) . '" rel="bookmark">', '</a></h2>' ); ?>
<div> <?php the_content(); ?> </div>
<?php endwhile; ?>