How do I create custom post types?

Hi, this is Sandra from GREYD. In this video I’d like to show you how easy it is to create custom post types in GREYD.SUITE without coding or plugins with our Dynamic Post Types feature. You’ll find the Dynamic Post Types in the GREYD.SUITE dashboard or also in the menu here on the left. Here you’ll find an overview of all your post types and you can create a new one by clicking up here. At first start with giving your post type a name. This name will also be displayed in the WordPress menu later.

In order for your post type name to appear correctly everywhere in the back end, please enter it in singular and plural and then we just have some general settings to make — for example where and how do we want the post type to appear here in the menu on the left. We can select an icon and a position. If you can’t work with these WordPress defaults here just select one of those options here, so for example after media. And then we define which features we want to have available, for example the content editor to be able to edit the content of the post by the block editor, define whether we want to have a post image, excerpt and/or author, categories or tags. And we also have the possibility to create custom taxonomies to further categorize the posts of this post type, for example by country. Again add in singular and plural and define whether you also want to have sub categories or not.

In terms of taxonomies you can also create global taxonomies, that are not only available to this post type but also to other post types. For example, let’s categorize our post types by partners and then we can define which post types I want to have this taxonomy — for example customer statements and posts. So this is really handy because you can make lots of very interesting stuff in relation to post overview, filtering, searches and all that, because these two post types now both use the same taxonomy and can be categorized by partners. With this option here you define whether you want the taxonomy only to be available in the back end for you to work with it or also in the front end, for example when you have filtering options in the front end and searches or post overviews. And again you can make it hierarchical.

Other than that we have some general architecture features, for example do you want the post type to be searchable, do you want to have an archive, do you want to add posts to the menu, do you want it to be hierarchical. And the last one — obviously we still have to translate this new option here — it’s a very interesting one. It makes the information of the latest post available as dynamic tag on your entire website. So you can use it and insert it dynamically anywhere on your website without having to work with post overviews and query loops and all that.

Let me show you an example of a post type that I’ve already created. Just go and create page and tag test, this one. Let’s just add some content here and let’s say for example: check out our newest job offer in … and now I want the website to automatically display the location of the latest job ad, which is a custom post type of mine. So I can now just say use dynamic tags here and I can not only insert the website title and the default dynamic tags or standard dynamic tags, but also information from my post types where I’ve activated this option here. And for example I could say display the location of the latest job ad and as you can see here, that’s automatically there, without post overview or anything. And if I now create a new job ad that has a location Frankfurt, it will automatically be changed on the website to Frankfurt.

Now you’ve made all basic settings and can start with creating your individual post type fields. Click here to add a field. Then add a label as well as a unique field name. The label is like a headline in the backend, displayed directly above the field and an important help element for the person who will be creating and editing posts later. Therefore choose a label that clearly explains what this field is to be used for. The unique name on the other hand will be used in the backend, for example you will find it later in the post overview block. Then define which field type you’d like to add and whether the field should be mandatory.

You can now choose from different variants of text, number, email or date fields, radio buttons, dropdowns, links, files or image fields as well as fields with HTML editor. You can also make the backend even more lucid with the field types headline, description and separators. That way you can add helpful information for the content editors in terms of how exactly the fields should be filled. For example you can also inform them in detail about optional fields only being visible in the frontend when they are filled with content.

My tip: If you want to have only one image in your post type, you could also work with the post image. However, when using the image field you will be able to add information for example about which format or subject should be uploaded. Here you can add additional inputs to support content editors who autofill your post types with content. Depending on the field type, you’ll find several different options. You can define placeholders, default values and descriptions. For number fields you can also add a minimum/maximum value as well as the steps. And for dropdowns and radio buttons you can add the selection values which should be offered in the field.

You can even vary the display option and the backend option. And for headlines for example you can also define the H-tag. So now let’s create our post type with the respective fields. By clicking here, we can add additional fields. I’ll just have a name, company image and statement as fields. You can also drag and drop your fields, edit them, duplicate or delete them.

So, ready is our Dynamic Post Type “customer statement”. You can now see the respective menu element here on the left and there you can edit your post type or create posts. Here you can now see all the fields which we have created earlier and can fill them really easily. This here is a WordPress standard that you don’t need. You can also hide it by disabling it here. So now it’s super easy to add new customer statements here without any WordPress skills.

How your posts will be displayed in the frontend is defined by its post template. By default, posts in WordPress are displayed with the so-called single template. If you’d like to create an individual layout for your new Dynamic Post Type, just click on “new template”, select post page and your Dynamic Post Type.

To include posts on pages, you can work with the post overview block or also the native query loop of Gutenberg. I’ve prepared an example post type here with some already published posts and I now want to include them on a website. I’ve already prepared it. So here we have several post overviews of one and the same Dynamic Post Type with an image, name, position and a statement. Here we have the post overview or the query loop. It’s almost the same. And with dynamic tags, I have included my post type fields of my custom post type.

There’s also a dedicated post overview or query loop tutorial in our Helpcenter. If you now combine that with our Dynamic Templates feature, that also offers you the possibility to implement optional fields. So it’s super easy to create different designs and layouts with one template and one post type. So here you can see different post overviews, but they all use the same template and they all refer to the same custom post type.

So how have I done it? I’ve got a template with a lot of optional fields, so there are no placeholders here. If you want to learn more about that, there’s also a dedicated Dynamic Template tutorial. And here I now have created several post overviews and sometimes I have used all fields and here for example I’ve only got the template filled with the statement. That way you can create different layouts by using the same template and only creating one custom post type.

So through that separation of content and design or layout, it’s possible for content editors without any technical knowledge to easily edit and fill Dynamic Post Types, while you still have all design options at your disposal. The editor only has to fill these fields and all this is managed by the designer.

For more videos and information, please visit our Helpcenter.