What are Custom Post Types?

Learn about Custom Post Types in WordPress and how Pods makes them easier to work with.

Post Types, in WordPress, are different types of content. Don’t let the name “post type” confuse you – it actually refers to any type of content. A more accurate way of describing it would be as a content type.

WordPress Default Post Types

There are five default post types that come with WordPress, all of which you’ll be familiar with:

  • Posts
  • Pages
  • Attachments
  • Revisions
  • Nav Menus

Custom Post Types

Custom Post Types are post types that are created in addition to those bundled with WordPress core. When you activate a theme or a plugin you may find that the developer has included custom post types. Or you may decide that the functionality you have isn’t adequate to your needs, and decide that you need to create your own.

Uses for Custom Post Types

Custom Post Types are used in a wide variety of ways across the WordPress ecosystem. Any time you need a content type that is different to the default types, you’ll need to start thinking about them. Some examples of how they are used are:

example-posttype

  • Products for an ecommerce site
  • Testimonials and a Showcase for a web portfolio
  • Listings for a real estate website
  • Reviews for a gaming website
  • Events for an event calendar
  • Vehicles for an Automotive website

You can create a post type for each of these, give them their own additional data and taxonomies, and then output them using your theme. This increases the flexibility of WordPress as you’re not limited to the content types that it comes bundled with.

Creating Custom Post Types

a screenshot of the create a new content type box - custom post type is selected in the dropdown. The taxonomy has the plural label books and the singular label book

If you code Custom Post Types yourself, you do this be registering the post type in the functions.php file of your theme, or in a plugin. Within this you can define the properties of the post type and how it acts within WordPress. The WordPress Codex has a guide to Post Types with information on coding them.

A plugin like Pods takes care of all of that coding for you. You can create the post type from your WordPress Admin, assigning all of the different properties and values that you need. This means that you don’t need to be a coder to make use of WordPress’s flexibility.

To make full use of Custom Post Types, you’ll also need to learn about WordPress Taxonomies and Custom Fields.

Other Helpful Documentation on Learning About Pods

Planning Your Custom Content Types

If you’re regularly building different types of websites, you may reach a point when the default WordPress Content Types are no longer sufficient for your projects. That’s when you need to get started using Custom Content Types on your website. Pods gives you the functionality to build Content Types, but you need to put thought and …

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Planning Your Solution with Pods

What do you mean by Solution as opposed to my Data Structure? Before you dig too deeply into what kind of structure you might need, you need to think about what Content you’re going to be managing on your Web Application and how that content is going to be used by your Users and your …

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What are Advanced Content Types?

ContentsBackgroundEnter Advanced Content TypesWhen to Use Advanced Content Types Background In order to understand Advanced Content Types, it helps to understand a little bit about how WordPress works. WordPress comprises PHP andMySQL. MySQL is the database that stores all of your website’s information, and PHP is the code allows for interaction between the web browser …

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What are Custom Fields?

Custom Fields are metaboxes that are used to input metadata that is related to your post. When you add a new post in WordPress, you’ll see these draggable boxes which are used for to store information about your post. Examples are author and excerpt. Another is custom fields. If you can’t see custom fields, click …

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What are Custom Taxonomies?

Taxonomies are used to Group and Filter content across multiple content types.

What are Extended Post Types?

Extending another Object with Pods gives you access to add fields to WordPress Objects (Users, Media, Posts & Pages) or Post Types or Taxonomies created by other plugins.

What is a Custom Settings Page?

What is Pods?

ContentsWordPress Content Types and FieldsHow Pods Helps YouHow it Works WordPress Content Types and Fields WordPress is all about creating content. It comes bundled with Posts and Pages, which you can organise using the Categories and Tags taxonomies. It’s also got post meta fields which you can use to append data to your content – …

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