You’d be better of using a plugin like Advanced Custom Fields which lets you add custom meta fields (by reusing WP_Editor).
It also handles the saving of the data too and you can use get_post_meta in your theme.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/advanced-custom-fields/
Thank you, I will try it now.
Hey dshalgishira,
First thing is that the most reasonable way of adding extra input fields to a post or page is via Custom Meta Boxes:
see here
This topic is quite enormous so if you’re confident with a bit more advanced programming and quite a lot of reading then go ahead – this would only improve your knowledge.
If your not confident with that then use ACF – I’ve been using this plugin for quite some time already and it’s one of the best plugins out there (yet still it involves some programming on the Front End).
Anyway please remember about the data validation http://codex.wordpress.org/Data_Validation whenever adding custom user input (even if it’s for your own sake – that’s a good practice as well)
Likewise to output a properly formatted content filtered via wp editor please do the following:
<?php
echo apply_filters( 'the_content', $variable_name );
?>
Where ‘$variable_name’ would be the name of a variable which had the contents stored.
This solution would run a lot of different filters, outputting the properly formatted text.
Hopefully I haven’t discouraged you. It is a good practice to avoid filtering the data as you did above, whenever there’s a semi-automatic solution (like the MetaBoxes API).
I did use the ACF plugin and it is a good solution.
BUT, if you know how to make a custom field to be a WYSIWYG editor I will be happy to know 🙂
I’ll post you with a full code snippet on how to do it tomorrow 🙂 For now please get familiar with the MetaBoxes above.
Hey, I’m extremely sorry for the delay, I’ve had a crazy X-Mas parties … I can still feel the Polish Vodka within my veins.
Anyway here’s a sample code on how to add a Custom WP Editor Meta Box. It’s a github’s gist: https://gist.github.com/4392890
There are two sections
1. Backend (put the code into functions.php file)
2. Front End (put the code into the loop in single.php file)
I have created a code that allows adding a WP editor meta box, to the post edit screen (so it’s connected with a post in that case).
Each section of the code is commented and I have provided sample to-be-followed links for you.
If you’d like to have a more in-depth understanding of Custom Meta Boxes creation you have to carefully study these. There’s a lot of reading provided on the codex already so there’s no sense to duplicate the effort.
In case you had any comments to any line feel free to ask.
@gicolek: Thank you very much for the sample code!
Perhaps have you got any suggestions on adding tinyMCE dynamically – via AJAX – into that metabox?
Hey @lilike, sorry for a late reply.
Why would you want to add TinyMCE to that editor? It’s already bounded with it (and you can easily switch to the HTML view).
Perhaps you were thinking on extending the editor with extra options? If yes, then check the following plugin: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/tinymce-advanced/
It’s also possible to do couple of things like that manually without the need of installing a plugin, although it requires some coding.
Anyway if you were thinking about something totally different, then you’d have to refer to tinyMCE documentation found @ http://www.tinymce.com/wiki.php
Should you have any questions, go ahead 🙂
Thanks for the links, finally found the clues to the solution: after the AJAX call I need to add controls to the tinyMCE editor:
tinymce.execCommand( 'mceAddControl', false, 'editor_id' );
Hey,
That’s the right path 🙂
I guess you’re wanting to load tinyMCE dynamically based on a checkbox or a dialog perhaps, right? Unfortunately I haven’t been doing that yet, so I’m not going to be much of a help.
Anyway you’ll probably be able to use parts of the code I prepared, especially getting the editors value and using it via $_POST variable.
Make sure to check if the data was set and validate user privileges afterwards.
Good luck,
Rafal
Yes, I would like to load it by a checkbox control. Thank you again, setting the $_POST variable was a little bit tricky.
@gicolek: Thanks a lot! Your code example helped me enormously. I wanted an input box for sidebar content and I had been researching if I could do it with metaboxes when I found your great example and explanation.
Thanks to Steven Jones for pointing out the ACF plugin. I’ll probably try it if I ever need something more complex.
