billerickson 2 min read

Using Custom Post Types

Custom post types let you create logical divisions of content and context-specific meta information boxes. If your site features content other than posts and pages, use this to manage it.

A WordPress website can contain multiple content types, known as "post types" in the WordPress world. The default post types are "Post" and "Page", but you can create your own custom post types.

On my website I've created a Code Snippets post type and a Projects post type. This simplifies the content creation process by grouping different types of content in the backend, and lets you have dynamic archives. I can customize the edit screen with Custom Metaboxes and Taxonomies .

Registering a post type

In your core functionality plugin , use the register_post_type() function to create a post type.

https://gist.github.com/billerickson/a37d53b7004b3c86379c500f73828303

Labels

The labels parameter lets you customize all the labels used throughout the WordPress backend. It's usually as simple as find/replacing the plural and singular forms of the post type, but you may want to tweak some of the other labels more extensively.

Supports

The supports parameter lets you specify which WordPress features should be enabled for this post type. Options:

  • 'title'
  • 'editor' (content)
  • 'author'
  • 'thumbnail' (featured image, current theme must also support  post-thumbnails )
  • 'excerpt'
  • 'trackbacks'
  • 'custom-fields'
  • 'comments' (also will see comment count balloon on edit screen)
  • 'revisions' (will store revisions)
  • 'page-attributes' (menu order, hierarchical must be true to show Parent option)
  • 'post-formats' add post formats, see  Post Formats
Show in REST

The show_in_rest parameter lets you decide if this post type should be visible in the REST API. This must be set to true if you'd like to use the new Gutenberg block editor

Has Archive

The has_archive parameter enables the post type archive, a dynamic archive listing recent content in this post type.

Rewrite

The rewrite parameter lets you enable and customize the URL rewriting for this content type.

Menu Icon

The menu_icon parameter lets you specify a Dashicon to use as the icon in the admin area.

Using a plugin

Rather than coding it yourself, you can use Custom Post Type UI to create and manage your custom post types. The plugin lets you specify the post type slug, labels, and settings shown above.

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