Best approach for creating different asset types

  • maracles

    (@maracles)


    6 years, 5 months ago

    I’m new to WordPress and looking for best practice advice on how to best create items for a directory-type website I’m working on.

    My website is intended to work like a website, not a blog. It is intended for a small, niche film making community.

    The homepage will be similar to Producthunt and I want to simply list a number of different websites with the Website Name and Website Description. See this link for an outline of the kind of thing I’m going for – https://ibb.co/sKryvXM.

    Each website I am considering a resource. There will however be different types – websites, apps, books, podcasts etc.

    Later stages of the website will hopefully lead to two developments:

    • Each resource having a bunch of decriptive metadata attached to them.
    • A form where visitors can submit their own resources to add to the directory

    My question revolves around how to configure these in a WordPress environment. In doing my research Custom Post Types seemed like the way forward but doing more research these seem unsuitable for various reasons:

    – Custom fields used for the metadata don’t allow for easy, rigid data validation which I will need to keep my data clean.
    – Each Custom post types seems to need to be its own page – I don’t want this. I want to list all of these resources in grids on single static pages.

    Can someone give me some pointers on how to approach this. I have basic PHP, JS coding knowledge but this is very much a hobbyist side-project,

    • This topic was modified 6 years, 5 months ago by maracles.
    • This topic was modified 6 years, 5 months ago by maracles.
    • This topic was modified 6 years, 5 months ago by Jan Dembowski. Reason: Moved to Fixing WordPress, this is not an Everything else WordPress topic
Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)
  • sallyinstc

    (@sallyinstc)

    6 years, 5 months ago

    Actually, this is a good case for a custom post type. The way it works is each post exists as its own entity, but could be listed in the grid format you want on what is known as an archive page. Doing it this way, the archive page will be updated whenever the posts are added/removed/changed. You can also have archive pages for specific categories, tags, or other ways of grouping your data.

    For more specific instructions on how this works, I suggest you take some time to look through tutorials from the custom post type plugin you are using. Or, if you are creating your own custom post type, visit the Developer’s Handbook https://developer.ww.wp.xz.cn/themes/basics/post-types/ .

    Thread Starter maracles

    (@maracles)

    6 years, 5 months ago

    Thankyou for your response. I understand what you’re saying and have read through the documentation of the plugin I am using – Custom Post Type UI.

    If I went down this route though I have a few questions:

    – My understanding is that all my custom field data gets thrown into the ‘postmeta’ table. I would rather not have this and instead wish to create my own table structure for my data. Is this possible with custom post types?

    – Using the grid we describe above I want to give additional functionality – see image here: Layout Wireframe .

    Is this something built into the archive functionality or would I have to custom design this functionality i.e. being able to display a ‘profile’ next to each grid item when clicked.

    – With data validation, would you recommend that I create a page with a form and enter my values via that form rather than through the WordPress administration interface – is it easier to enforce data validation in this manner?

    Thanks in advance, I’m currently just planning the development so open to suggestions.

    • This reply was modified 6 years, 5 months ago by maracles.
Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)

The topic ‘Best approach for creating different asset types’ is closed to new replies.