Custom fields open up even more advanced options to the theme and plugin designer.
Custom fields were initially thought of as a way to store metadata for a post, and that’s still the way it is presented in the Codex, as well as how the default output (which we’ll get to) is behaving. However, that is not the most common usage for custom fields these days. Far more often custom fields are used to apply an image to a post, and use it in listings, or to achieve what is often referred to as magazine-style headlines. This is obviously good, although maybe not the ideal solution when it comes to usability.
However, custom fields needn’t be limited to managing magazine-style headlines or showing off post thumbnails in listings. You can use custom fields for a number of things, such as applying custom CSS styles depending on the post, as a way to add further unique styling to the posts. Or you use custom fields to create and identify a series of posts (the key would be Series and the value would be the various series’ names), and then create a Page template with a custom loop that limits the output to posts with a specific Series value.
Another image-based custom fields implementation would be to not only apply headline and listing images for the post, but also alter the complete body background! Custom fields can be taken pretty far, and whenever you need to step outside the boundaries of traditional WordPress template tags and functions, custom fields are where you should look first.
My main gripe with custom fields is that they look so messy. Just look at that custom fields box in WordPress admin; it isn’t at all as user-friendly as the rest of the interface. Just the “key” and “value” nomenclature, and then the whole design of the box. . . . No, it just isn’t something I’d trust a client with.
This is the most serious issue with custom fields, I think. After all, when you’ve used it once it is easy enough to pick the key you need and copy and paste the image you want in the value field, for instance. But while that may not seem daunting to you, a client may feel differently.
This is something you need to consider when doing work for clients. Is it feasible to assume that the person(s) updating the site can handle custom fields? The most common usage of custom fields is, after all, headline images and things like that, and they almost always involve finding a URL to the image and copying and pasting it to the value field of the appropriate key. Can the client handle that?
Custom fields are great, don’t get me wrong, but until they are presented in a more user-friendly way, they are limited to the more Web-savvy crowd that isn’t afraid to do some manual inputting. You probably fall into that category, but whether or not your clients (or partners, collaborators, or whatever) do is up to you to decide. If not, you are probably better offfinding another solution.
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Note: This article was sent to us by: Keith Branger at 05172010
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