Custom fields are one of the more powerful aspects of WordPress. They’re also, by default, victims of just about the worst interface ever designed. The idea of capturing and using metadata is great, but a better interface helps a ton. Keeping up my current infatuation with the Pods plugin, here’s how it can help you make great interfaces to WordPress post meta data.

Custom Fields (or post meta) are super useful when you have a piece of useful static data associated with a WordPress post or other post type. For our Link Posts here on WPShout, that’s the URL. For other sites, that may be place, a date, a label, etc. In all cases, custom fields are what’s called for. Here’s how you can make a great interface for them with Pods:

And if you want the written-out step-by-step guide…

How To Create Post Meta Field Boxes with the Pods Plugin for WordPress

1. Go to Pods > Create New in the left side bar.
2. Select Extend Existing.
3. Select your post type, for me that was Posts.
4. Click the blue Add Field button.
5. I made a link (URL) field. For that I set the label to Link, and set the Field Type to Website.
6. Now, on my WordPress Posts editor, I’ll see the More Fields box provided by pods that includes my Link field.