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Custom post types

When building a website, there may be sections on the website such as events and projects where the content and appearance are very different from posts and pages. That's when you need custom post types.

What are custom post types?​

Custom post types are different types of content in WordPress. You should consider creating a custom post type for a particular content type if:

  • It needs to be displayed differently from posts and pages, or
  • It doesn't look and feel like a post or a page, or
  • It needs some additional fields and characteristics

How to create a custom post type?​

Creating custom post types is done easily with the MB Custom Post Types & Custom Taxonomies extension. This extension is already bundled in Meta Box AIO, MB Core, or you can install it for free from WordPress.org.

To create a new custom post type, go to Meta Box » Post Types and click New Post Type:

create a new custom post type

There are several settings divided into tabs. In most cases, you only need to enter the plural name, singular name, and slug in the General tab and click the Publish button to register the post type.

Settings

To understand the settings in detail, please see the docs for the MB Custom Post Types & Custom Taxonomies extension.

Creating custom taxonomies​

When having a lot of posts of a custom post type, you might want to categorize them. For example, categorize music albums by genre or artist. To categorize posts like that, you'll need custom taxonomies.

Taxonomies in WordPress is a mechanism for grouping posts, like category and tag. In the example above, "genre" and "artist" are custom taxonomies for the custom post type "music album".

To create a new custom taxonomy, go to Meta Box » Taxonomies and click Add New:

create a new taxonomy

There are several settings divided into tabs. In most cases, you only need to enter the plural name, singular name, and slug in the General tab and click the Publish button to register the taxonomy.

Settings

To understand the settings in details, please see the docs for the MB Custom Post Types & Custom Taxonomies extension.

Video tutorial​

The video below shows you the steps and explains the settings for a custom post type and a custom taxonomy:

Next steps​

After creating a custom post type, let's add custom fields to add more details for posts of that post type! That's the most important part of the whole process and is the heart of Meta Box.