Title: Need help with CDB2 Implementation/Customization Last modified: September 8, 2021 --- # Need help with CDB2 Implementation/Customization * Resolved [thearniec](https://wordpress.org/support/users/thearniec/) * (@thearniec) * [4 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/need-help-with-cdb2-implementation-customization/) * I’m a developer familiar with PHP, CSS, HTML, Java. But I don’t want to go in and make a lot of changes to the CMB2 plug-in (a) without knowing the base code very well, (b) without knowing if I’ll break it terribly and (c) without knowing my changes will persist (or be easily re-implmeneted) with plug-in updates. * So I was hoping someone here could point me in a direction. * 1) CMB2 has perplexed me with its rating system. At present it seems the only way to see the ratings is on this page: [https://nowplayingpodcast.com/wp/movies-vertical/](https://nowplayingpodcast.com/wp/movies-vertical/)( Only Spider-Man 3 has a rating). * The rating seems to be a 5 “star” rating, in half star increments. But it also seems that rating is tied to a field in the movie metadata with values such as“ Junk” and “Excellent”, which is unclear as to what rating matches which stars. * I would like to replace the star graphics with my own “arrow” graphics. And instead of half increments, it would determine the number of the arrow graphics and their color (I have the graphics made and the arrow colors set in them). * Also I’d like to have these arrow ratings show up everywhere the movie is listed( The movie detail page, the movie listing page I linked to, the home page….EXCEPT for the top movie on the home page (the most recently published movie). That one should not display the rating) * 3) When you go into a movie details page: a) Can the date the movie was entered( publish date) be automatically put at the top of the text to the right of the poster? b) Can the movie rating arrows be shown automatically under the text box that’s right of the poster? c) Can the comments be moved much higher so the comments section is above the “recent posts” section? * 4) When I enter a movie with a future publish date, I would like a sidebar widget to display the next 5 scheduled movies, showing poster, title, and publish date. Then a link to a page that shows all future-scheduled movies. (I presently have Venom: Let there be Carnage scheduled as an example) * 5) CMB2 has monopolized the Category functionality of WordPress. The Category has become film directors. When a movie is added with a new director, it creates a new category. * I want to retain the functionality to group by directors. But I ALSO want to be able to group by movie series. Normally I’d do that using WP Categories, but since CMB2 has taken that, how can I do that? Is another plug-in available that can do that? * 5a) Each series will have a square graphic. Is there a way to have a page that lists all series with their graphics?` * Thanks for any help you can offer. * The page I need help with: _[[log in](https://login.wordpress.org/?redirect_to=https%3A%2F%2Fwordpress.org%2Fsupport%2Ftopic%2Fneed-help-with-cdb2-implementation-customization%2F%3Foutput_format%3Dmd&locale=en_US) to see the link]_ Viewing 1 replies (of 1 total) * Plugin Contributor [Michael Beckwith](https://wordpress.org/support/users/tw2113/) * (@tw2113) * The BenchPresser * [4 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/need-help-with-cdb2-implementation-customization/#post-14852831) * Hi [@thearniec](https://wordpress.org/support/users/thearniec/) * Everything regarding the frontend and the viewing of the pages/templates is going to be more in regards to the theme being used for this site more than CMB2. * At the heart of everything with CMB2 is that it’s a library to help facilitate the creation and customization of metaboxes in the editor screen for your posts and various post types. Very much like Advanced Custom Fields, if you’re familiar with them at all. * CMB2 can be used to create various field types that can save data to posts, terms, users, and even option pages. That data can be treated as either post/term/user meta, retrieved with WordPress’ `get_*_meta()` functions, or with option pages, the `get_option()` function. Depending on the field type, it can also save taxonomy terms on the posts, replacing the original metaboxes for those. This part here sounds very much like item 5 above with the Category functionality. * That said, when someone installs and activates CMB2, it doesn’t do anything out of box, it still needs to be configured at the code level to start creating the fields. So with that said, it sounds like whoever did up the theme here, embedded CMB2 as a utility library and configured various fields somewhere else in the theme’s code. Where that is, is impossible for me to say. * Hope that all makes sense. We’re being used as a utility for the theme itself, and all of the output is handled by the theme and not CMB2 itself. * Feel free to ask any questions you may still have, I’ll answer as best I can. Viewing 1 replies (of 1 total) The topic ‘Need help with CDB2 Implementation/Customization’ is closed to new replies. * ![](https://ps.w.org/cmb2/assets/icon.svg?rev=2866672) * [CMB2](https://wordpress.org/plugins/cmb2/) * [Frequently Asked Questions](https://wordpress.org/plugins/cmb2/#faq) * [Support Threads](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/cmb2/) * [Active Topics](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/cmb2/active/) * [Unresolved Topics](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/cmb2/unresolved/) * [Reviews](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/cmb2/reviews/) ## Tags * [categories](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/categories/) * [layout](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/layout/) * 1 reply * 2 participants * Last reply from: [Michael Beckwith](https://wordpress.org/support/users/tw2113/) * Last activity: [4 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/need-help-with-cdb2-implementation-customization/#post-14852831) * Status: resolved