Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) allows comprehensive control of the WordPress edit screen and custom fields. Custom fields extend the data that is stored about a particular post in WordPress in a structured way. This can be relatively trivial, for example by adding a new field to the CMS that allows editors to add editorial notes which is never displayed on the front end. Or it can be very sophisticated, replacing the entire normal WordPress editor and creating a whole new editor experience composed of blocks. Depending on the usage, ACF may require that the theme is modified to support outputting these custom fields to the front end.
Pre-v3 Qala makes heavy use of ACF as an alternate page builder. In v3 and later versions of Qala, ACF page building is superseded by Gutenberg block editing as a superior page building experience. Qala ships with the Pro version of this plugin which includes extra features and functionality.
Some content on this page is 3rd party content from https://en-gb.wordpress.org/plugins/advanced-custom-fields/ and https://www.advancedcustomfields.com/pro/ is correct as of
User experience
In the CMS, users creating new pages can select ‘Page with modules’ as a page template.
This will hide the normal WordPress editor and provide instead an interface that allows the CMS user to add ‘modules’ – these are layout components to the page.
When a module is added to the page, it provides the content tools specific to that particular layout – e.g. an image uploader or the ability to modify button text.
Benefits
ACF is a very popular WordPress plugin and has several beneficial characteristics:
- Simple & Intuitive
- Powerful Functions
- Over 30 Field Types
- Extensive Documentation
- Millions of Users
The value that ACF brings to Qala is to allow CMS users to quickly and efficiently build ecommerce-specific layouts by combining proven modules into entire pages without having to learn or understand any code. All that a CMS user needs to do is to understand what each module is and then to complete the step-by-step process of populating each module with the specific content desired.
