Title: Database driven content? Last modified: August 21, 2016 --- # Database driven content? * [trevthedancer](https://wordpress.org/support/users/trevthedancer/) * (@trevthedancer) * [12 years, 5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/database-driven-content/) * Hi * I am wondering if it is possible to use a database to drive content on my wordpress website? * My website is at [http://www.salsa4dancersleeds.co.uk](http://www.salsa4dancersleeds.co.uk) * As you can see if you visit it I have sections for salsa teachers, for salsa venues and for events (as well as plans to have pages for salsa dj’s, promoters, etc…). * What I would like is to have say a teachers database in the background, with standard data for all of the teachers, and the page for that teacher to automatically pull up that data in a standard way. The same could apply to venues and events… * Is there a way to do this? Preferably one that doesn’t involve a large amount of coding! I’m reasonably technically competent, but I haven’t programmed anything since high school (a long long time ago…), when I was programming in basic! My database experience is also fairly minimal (though I understand the basic concepts involved). If there is a plugin that would offer this functionality then that would be ideal. Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total) * [Andrew Nevins](https://wordpress.org/support/users/anevins/) * (@anevins) * WCLDN 2018 Contributor | Volunteer support * [12 years, 5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/database-driven-content/#post-4254403) * WordPress is database-driven, so yes, you can use a database to drive content on your website. * [shadez](https://wordpress.org/support/users/shadez/) * (@shadez) * [12 years, 5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/database-driven-content/#post-4254407) * You are running wordpress and you are using a DB! 🙂 * For teachers, you can add them as users. For grouping them you can create a new user role using add_role, copy permissions from subscribers list itself. so that way, you have bailamos, etc groups. note that wordpress uses ‘roles’ and not ‘groups’ for classification. Ref: [http://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/add_role](http://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/add_role) * you can see their profiles using author.php file in your theme. * add thee users/authors to your posts/pages and find ways to display them as per your needs.. * Thread Starter [trevthedancer](https://wordpress.org/support/users/trevthedancer/) * (@trevthedancer) * [12 years, 5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/database-driven-content/#post-4254463) * Thanks for the quick responses…. and yes, I did know that wordpress runs off a database! 🙂 * I guess I was wanting to do some more complex things with it than the basic layout allows. * For example, the events and the venues and the teachers should all be linked together, so that I can just change one thing and all the linked pages update automatically. For example if I change an event so that it has a different teacher, then that change should automatically show up on the teachers page, and the events, and the Venues page, and also the ‘Beginners salsa Classes’ page… * I’d also for example like to be able to put in a teachers twitter handle into their profile info and on their profile page it automatically generates a twitter widget for them! * I’m not sure that the ‘Add User’ option is what I’m wanting to be doing. After all, these profiles are only to be editable by me! * I have big plans… just very little knowledge! 🙂 * [shadez](https://wordpress.org/support/users/shadez/) * (@shadez) * [12 years, 5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/database-driven-content/#post-4254496) * seriously think bout what i said.. * 1. your users neednt know they have an active ID. its for dev purpose only. * 2. you can use fancy permalinks for authors * 3. you can add multiple users to posts.. that way, all events and venue posts can showcase teachers easily.. and their profile will show latest posts from them, which you can further customize by categorizing posts into events, etc and show them likewise.. * 4. like i mentioned in previous reply, you can change their roles to better categorize them.. * 5. for twitter, add this to functions.php and chk: * ``` add_action( 'show_user_profile', 'sdadsda_show_extra' ); add_action( 'edit_user_profile', 'sdadsda_show_extra' ); function sdadsda_show_extra( $user ) { ?>
Enter twitter here.
add_action( 'personal_options_update', 'sdadsda_save_extra' ); add_action( 'edit_user_profile_update', 'sdadsda_save_extra' ); function sdadsda_save_extra( $user_id ) { update_usermeta( $user_id, 'age', $_POST['twitter'] ); } ``` * 6. and you can do much much more with author.php.. remember that you have limited users so you can use/play with their $id for customization instead of inserting stuff to DB.. * so contrary to your ques, am suggesting a WP features approach instead of DB driven.. the lesser you abuse WP, esp DB, the safer you are during future upgrades.. * and if you do want a DB approach, you can expand user tables and work.. but what purpose does it serve when your users are ‘posts’? 🙂 * Thread Starter [trevthedancer](https://wordpress.org/support/users/trevthedancer/) * (@trevthedancer) * [12 years, 5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/database-driven-content/#post-4254503) * Thanks shadez. * I have lots to think about now! I’ll give due consideration to your idea to create profiles for the teachers. I’ll have to consider how it will add to or reduce the complexity of adding new teachers and modifying existing events and suchlike. * Probably I’ll do a trial one to see how it works. * Also thanks for the twitter badge code. Once I have added this code I assume that I use a shortcode to add the badge to a particular page (apologies for the basic questions). * [shadez](https://wordpress.org/support/users/shadez/) * (@shadez) * [12 years, 5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/database-driven-content/#post-4254507) * err.. that code adds a field to user profile. so you can fetch it later using` get_userdata`. * Thread Starter [trevthedancer](https://wordpress.org/support/users/trevthedancer/) * (@trevthedancer) * [12 years, 5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/database-driven-content/#post-4254524) * Thanks! I told you I didn’t have any coding smarts! 🙂 Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total) The topic ‘Database driven content?’ is closed to new replies. ## Tags * [content](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/content/) * [database](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/database/) * In: [Fixing WordPress](https://wordpress.org/support/forum/how-to-and-troubleshooting/) * 7 replies * 3 participants * Last reply from: [trevthedancer](https://wordpress.org/support/users/trevthedancer/) * Last activity: [12 years, 5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/database-driven-content/#post-4254524) * Status: not resolved ## Topics ### Topics with no replies ### Non-support topics ### Resolved topics ### Unresolved topics ### All topics