Web programming Tutorial

How to Create Custom Taxonomies in WordPress

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<span style="background-color: white; color: #464646; font-family: Lora, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 28px;">Many people think of WordPress as a blogging tool, mainly because it has posts, categories, tags, etc. What most people don’t know is that all posts, categories, tags, can be replaced by </span>custom post types<span style="background-color: white; color: #464646; font-family: Lora, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 28px;"> and custom taxonomies. In this article we will show you how to create custom taxonomies in WordPress as well as how to display custom taxonomies in your WordPress theme.</span><br />
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What is a Taxonomy?</h4>
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Taxonomy in WordPress is one of those things that everyone use, but they do not know that they are using it. Derived from the biological classification method<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linnaean_taxonomy" rel="nofollow" style="color: #ea6a1b; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" title="Linnaean Taxonomy">Linnaean taxonomy</a>, WordPress taxonomies are used as a way to group posts and custom post types together. WordPress has two very popular taxonomies that people use on a regular basis: Categories and Tags (Read: <a href="http://www.wpbeginner.com/beginners-guide/categories-vs-tags-seo-best-practices-which-one-is-better/" style="color: #ea6a1b; text-decoration: none;" title="Categories vs. Tags: Best Practices">Categories vs. Tags: Best Practices</a>). You can use custom taxonomies to create custom groups and bring them under one umbrella. For example, you have a custom post type called Books. Even though you can use categories, you may not want to mix the two because they are used differently. You can register a new custom taxonomy called Topics. You can add topic terms like: Adventure, Romance, Non-Fiction, etc. This would allow you and your users to sort your books by each topic. Taxonomies can also be hierarchical meaning that you can have main topics like: Fiction, Non-Fiction, and Children. Then have subtopics under each category for example fiction would have thrillers as a sub-topic.</div>
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Now that you know what is a custom taxonomy, let’s learn how to create custom taxonomies in WordPress. We will use two methods to create custom taxonomies. Method 1 would utilize a plugin for those who choose not to deal with code. Method 2 on the other hand would be the code method for those who prefer to do everything without a plugin.</div>
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Creating Custom Taxonomies – The Easier Way</h4>
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Let’s start creating a custom taxonomy. First, you need to install and activate <a href="http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/simple-taxonomy/" rel="nofollow" style="color: #ea6a1b; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" title="Simple Taxonomy Plugin">Simple Taxonomy</a> WordPress plugin. Go to <strong>Settings » Custom Taxonomies </strong>to create a new taxonomy:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg74nWU1mRbRYkZq68ZxEu3QeOntZU9oLZ14d8nVqzBnxim-jYY8x0AM0v0ciLmtU-Ky1zgNDcE84T3aHuJgDATgO8Ifk3OM49szP_boNRnOub_buTe9VB7hD1e6UOtaI2i0oLpPFIJbIjY/s1600/create-taxnomy-screen.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="175" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg74nWU1mRbRYkZq68ZxEu3QeOntZU9oLZ14d8nVqzBnxim-jYY8x0AM0v0ciLmtU-Ky1zgNDcE84T3aHuJgDATgO8Ifk3OM49szP_boNRnOub_buTe9VB7hD1e6UOtaI2i0oLpPFIJbIjY/s320/create-taxnomy-screen.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>
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The first part of creating a custom taxonomy is giving it a name, which needs to be all lowercase and no weird characters. The second option is whether or not this taxonomy will be hierarchical. If you want to create a taxonomy like categories where you can add a parent and child term then choose True, other wise choose false if you want terms to be added like tags.</div>
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Third option is to associate this taxonomy with a post type and last option is whether or not you want to add terms automatically, choose none.</div>
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But we are not done yet. Lets assume that you are creating a taxonomy and calling it Topics. Now you need to tell WordPress how it should translate user interface for the topics.</div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #464646; font-family: Lora, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 28px; text-align: start;">After providing translations for the UI, press the Add Taxonomy button. Once a custom taxonomy is created, it will appear under Posts and will have a similar interface like Categories or Tags. Also the custom taxonomy field will also appear in post edit area.</span></div>
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Manually Creating Custom Taxonomies</h4>
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Add the following code in your theme’s <code>functions.php</code> file or in a <strong><a href="http://www.wpbeginner.com/beginners-guide/what-why-and-how-tos-of-creating-a-site-specific-wordpress-plugin/" style="color: #ea6a1b; text-decoration: none;" title="Site Specific Plugin">site-specific plugin</a> (recommended)</strong> to create a hierarchical custom taxonomy like categories:</div>
<pre><span style="color: red;">//hook into the init action and call create_book_taxonomies when it fires
add_action( 'init', 'create_topics_hierarchical_taxonomy', 0 );

//create a custom taxonomy name it topics for your posts

function create_topics_hierarchical_taxonomy() {

// Add new taxonomy, make it hierarchical like categories
//first do the translations part for GUI

$labels = array(
    'name' => _x( 'Topics', 'taxonomy general name' ),
    'singular_name' => _x( 'Topic', 'taxonomy singular name' ),
    'search_items' =>  __( 'Search Topics' ),
    'all_items' => __( 'All Topics' ),
    'parent_item' => __( 'Parent Topic' ),
    'parent_item_colon' => __( 'Parent Topic:' ),
    'edit_item' => __( 'Edit Topic' ), 
    'update_item' => __( 'Update Topic' ),
    'add_new_item' => __( 'Add New Topic' ),
    'new_item_name' => __( 'New Topic Name' ),
    'menu_name' => __( 'Topics' ),
  );

// Now register the taxonomy

register_taxonomy('topics',array('post'), array(
    'hierarchical' => true,
    'labels' => $labels,
    'show_ui' => true,
    'show_admin_column' => true,
    'query_var' => true,
    'rewrite' => array( 'slug' => 'topic' ),
  ));

}</span></pre>
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To create a non-hierarchical custom taxonomy like Tags, add this code in your theme’s <code>functions.php</code> or in a <a href="http://www.wpbeginner.com/beginners-guide/what-why-and-how-tos-of-creating-a-site-specific-wordpress-plugin/" style="color: #ea6a1b; text-decoration: none;" title="Site Specific Plugin">site-specific plugin</a>:</div>
<pre><span style="color: red;">//hook into the init action and call create_topics_nonhierarchical_taxonomy when it fires

add_action( 'init', 'create_topics_nonhierarchical_taxonomy', 0 );

function create_topics_nonhierarchical_taxonomy() {

// Labels part for the GUI

$labels = array(
    'name' => _x( 'Topics', 'taxonomy general name' ),
    'singular_name' => _x( 'Topic', 'taxonomy singular name' ),
    'search_items' =>  __( 'Search Topics' ),
    'popular_items' => __( 'Popular Topics' ),
    'all_items' => __( 'All Topics' ),
    'parent_item' => null,
    'parent_item_colon' => null,
    'edit_item' => __( 'Edit Topic' ), 
    'update_item' => __( 'Update Topic' ),
    'add_new_item' => __( 'Add New Topic' ),
    'new_item_name' => __( 'New Topic Name' ),
    'separate_items_with_commas' => __( 'Separate topics with commas' ),
    'add_or_remove_items' => __( 'Add or remove topics' ),
    'choose_from_most_used' => __( 'Choose from the most used topics' ),
    'menu_name' => __( 'Topics' ),
  );

// Now register the non-hierarchical taxonomy like tag

register_taxonomy('topics','post',array(
    'hierarchical' => false,
    'labels' => $labels,
    'show_ui' => true,
    'show_admin_column' => true,
    'update_count_callback' => '_update_post_term_count',
    'query_var' => true,
    'rewrite' => array( 'slug' => 'topic' ),
  ));
}
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Notice the difference between two codes. Value for hierarchical argument is true for category-like taxonomy and false for tags-like taxonomies. Also in the labels array for non-hierarchical tags-like taxonomy, we have added null for parent_item and parent_item_colon arguments which means that nothing will be shown in the UI to create parent item.</div>
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Displaying Custom Taxonomies</h4>
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Here is how you can display the terms you added to a custom taxonomy on your single post page. Add this single line of code in your <code>single.php</code> file within the loop:</div>
<pre><span style="color: red;"><?php the_terms( $post->ID, 'topics', 'Topics: ', ', ', ' ' ); ?></span></pre>
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You can add it in other files as well such as archive.php, index.php, and anywhere else you want to display the taxonomy.</div>
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By default your custom taxonomies use the <code>archive.php</code> template to display posts. However, you can create a custom archive display for them by creating <code>taxonomy-{taxonomy-slug}.php</code>.</div>
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Custom taxonomies can be used in many ways. Combine them with <a href="http://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-tutorials/how-to-use-custom-post-types/" style="color: #ea6a1b; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" title="How to use Custom Post Types in WordPress">custom post types</a> and <a href="http://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-tutorials/how-to-add-custom-meta-boxes-in-wordpress-posts-and-post-types/" style="color: #ea6a1b; text-decoration: none;" title="How to Add Custom Meta Boxes in WordPress Posts and Pages">custom meta boxes</a>, and you can create highly customized content management system (CMS) built to meet your needs. Let us know how you are using custom taxonomies on your websites?</div>
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How to Create Custom Taxonomies in WordPress

Many people think of WordPress as a blogging tool, mainly because it has posts, categories, tags, etc. What most people don’t know is that all posts, categories, tags, can be replaced by custom post types and custom taxonomies. In this article we will show you how to create custom taxonomies in Wor…

12Jul2016

How to Create Custom Post Types in WordPress

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<span style="background-color: white; color: #464646; font-family: Lora, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 28px;">Often people mistakenly classify WordPress as just a blogging platform. Over the past years, WordPress has evolved into a robust content management system. By default WordPress comes with post and pages as the main content types. However you can create as many custom content types as you like, and these custom content types are referred to as </span><strong style="background-color: white; color: #464646; font-family: Lora, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 28px;">Custom Post Types</strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #464646; font-family: Lora, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 28px;">. In this article, we will show you how to create custom post types in WordPress. We will also show you how to use them like a pro.</span><br />
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What is Custom Post Type in WordPress?</h4>
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Custom post types are content types like posts and pages. Since WordPress evolved from a simple blogging platform into a robust CMS, the term post stuck to it. However, a post type can be any kind of content. By default, WordPress comes with these post types:</div>
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<li style="list-style-type: square; margin: 0px 0px 15px 20px;">Page</li>
<li style="list-style-type: square; margin: 0px 0px 15px 20px;">Attachment</li>
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You can create your own custom post types and call them whatever you want. For example if you run a movie review website, then you would probably want to create a movie reviews post type. This post type can have different custom fields and even its own custom category structure. Other examples of post types are: Portfolio, Testimonials, Products, etc.</div>
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<strong>When doi I need a custom post type?</strong></div>
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Check out our article about <a href="http://www.wpbeginner.com/beginners-guide/when-do-you-need-a-custom-post-type-or-taxonomy-in-wordpress/" style="color: #ea6a1b; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" title="When Do You Need Custom Post Types and Taxonomies in WordPress">when do you really need custom post types or taxonomies in WordPress</a>.</div>
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Also take a look at WPBeginner’s <a href="http://www.wpbeginner.com/deals/" style="color: #ea6a1b; text-decoration: none;" title="WPBeginner Deals">Deals</a> and <a href="http://www.wpbeginner.com/glossary/" style="color: #ea6a1b; text-decoration: none;" title="WPBeginner WordPress Glossary">Glossary</a> sections. These are custom post types that we created to keep them separate from our regular articles.</div>
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You will also notice that we are using custom taxonomies for them instead of categories or tags.</div>
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Creating a Custom Post Type – The Easy Way</h4>
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The easiest way to create a custom post type in WordPress is by using a plugin. This method is recommended for beginner because it is safe and super easy.</div>
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First thing you need to do is install and activate the <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/custom-post-type-ui/" rel="nofollow" style="color: #ea6a1b; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" title="Custom Post Type UI">Custom Post Type UI</a> plugin. Upon activation, the plugin will add a new menu item in your WordPress admin menu called <em>CPT UI</em>.</div>
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Now go to <strong>CPT UI » Add New</strong> to create a new custom post type.</div>
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This is why the Add new custom post type page is divided into two columns. On your left, you have the form you need to fill to create your custom post type. On your right, you have a form to create a custom taxonomy if you need one.</div>
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In the custom post type column, first you need to provide a name for your custom post type. This name cannot exceed more than 20 characters, e.g. movies, recipe, deal, glossary, etc.</div>
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In the next field, you need to provide a label for your custom post type. This label will appear in your WordPress admin bar just like posts and pages. It also needs to be plural to make sense. e.g. Movies, Recipes, Deals, Glossary, etc.</div>
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After that you need to provide a singular form for your label. This singular form will be used by WordPress to show instructions and other user interface elements.</div>
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Lastly enter a description for your custom post type. This description is simply used to describe what your post type does.</div>
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Now you can click on the ‘Create Custom Post Type’ button to add your new custom post type. That’s all.</div>
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You can also click on the Advanced Label Options and Advanced Options links to customize more options for your custom post type.</div>
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Creating a Custom Post Type Manually</h4>
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The problem with using a plugin is that your custom post types will disappear when the plugin is deactivated. Any data you have in those custom post types will still be there, but your custom post type will be unregistered and will not be accessible from the <a href="http://www.wpbeginner.com/glossary/admin-area/" style="color: #ea6a1b; text-decoration: none;" title="What is Admin Area in WordPress?">admin area</a>.</div>
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If you are working on a client site and do not want to install another plugin, then you can manually create your custom post type by adding the required code in your theme’s <a href="http://www.wpbeginner.com/glossary/functions-php/" style="color: #ea6a1b; text-decoration: none;" title="What is functions.php File in WordPress?">functions.php</a> file or in a <a href="http://www.wpbeginner.com/beginners-guide/what-why-and-how-tos-of-creating-a-site-specific-wordpress-plugin/" style="color: #ea6a1b; text-decoration: none;" title="How to Create a Site Specific WordPress Plugin">site-specific plugin</a> (See: <a href="http://www.wpbeginner.com/opinion/wordpress-custom-post-types-debate-functions-php-or-plugins/" style="color: #ea6a1b; text-decoration: none;" title="Custom Post Type Debate - Functions.php or Plugins">Custom Post Types Debate functions.php or Plugin</a>).</div>
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First we will show you a quick and fully working example so that you understand how it works. Take a look at this code:</div>
<pre><span style="color: red; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">// Our custom post type function
function create_posttype() {

register_post_type( 'movies',
 // CPT Options
  array(
   'labels' => array(
    'name' => __( 'Movies' ),
    'singular_name' => __( 'Movie' )
   ),
   'public' => true,
   'has_archive' => true,
   'rewrite' => array('slug' => 'movies'),
  )
 );
}
// Hooking up our function to theme setup
add_action( 'init', 'create_posttype' );</span></pre>
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What this code does is that it registers a post type <code>'movies'</code> with an array of arguments. These arguments are the options of our custom post type. This array has two parts, the first part is labels, which itself is an array. The second part contains other arguments like public visibility, has archive, and slug that will be used in URLs for this post type.</div>
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Now lets take a look at a detailed piece of code that adds more options to your custom post type.</div>
<pre><span style="color: red;">/*
* Creating a function to create our CPT
*/

function custom_post_type() {

// Set UI labels for Custom Post Type
 $labels = array(
  'name'                => _x( 'Movies', 'Post Type General Name', 'twentythirteen' ),
  'singular_name'       => _x( 'Movie', 'Post Type Singular Name', 'twentythirteen' ),
  'menu_name'           => __( 'Movies', 'twentythirteen' ),
  'parent_item_colon'   => __( 'Parent Movie', 'twentythirteen' ),
  'all_items'           => __( 'All Movies', 'twentythirteen' ),
  'view_item'           => __( 'View Movie', 'twentythirteen' ),
  'add_new_item'        => __( 'Add New Movie', 'twentythirteen' ),
  'add_new'             => __( 'Add New', 'twentythirteen' ),
  'edit_item'           => __( 'Edit Movie', 'twentythirteen' ),
  'update_item'         => __( 'Update Movie', 'twentythirteen' ),
  'search_items'        => __( 'Search Movie', 'twentythirteen' ),
  'not_found'           => __( 'Not Found', 'twentythirteen' ),
  'not_found_in_trash'  => __( 'Not found in Trash', 'twentythirteen' ),
 );
 
// Set other options for Custom Post Type
 
 $args = array(
  'label'               => __( 'movies', 'twentythirteen' ),
  'description'         => __( 'Movie news and reviews', 'twentythirteen' ),
  'labels'              => $labels,
  // Features this CPT supports in Post Editor
  'supports'            => array( 'title', 'editor', 'excerpt', 'author', 'thumbnail', 'comments', 'revisions', 'custom-fields', ),
  // You can associate this CPT with a taxonomy or custom taxonomy. 
  'taxonomies'          => array( 'genres' ),
  /* A hierarchical CPT is like Pages and can have
  * Parent and child items. A non-hierarchical CPT
  * is like Posts.
  */ 
  'hierarchical'        => false,
  'public'              => true,
  'show_ui'             => true,
  'show_in_menu'        => true,
  'show_in_nav_menus'   => true,
  'show_in_admin_bar'   => true,
  'menu_position'       => 5,
  'can_export'          => true,
  'has_archive'         => true,
  'exclude_from_search' => false,
  'publicly_queryable'  => true,
  'capability_type'     => 'page',
 );
 
 // Registering your Custom Post Type
 register_post_type( 'movies', $args );

}

/* Hook into the 'init' action so that the function
* Containing our post type registration is not 
* unnecessarily executed. 
*/

add_action( 'init', 'custom_post_type', 0 );</span></pre>
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As you can see, we have added many more options to the custom post type with his code. It will add more features like support for revisions, featured image, custom fields, etc.</div>
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We have also associated this custom post type with a custom taxonomy called genres. Also notice the part where we have set the hierarchical value to be false. If you would like your custom post type to behave like Pages, then you can set this value to true.</div>
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Also notice repeated usage of twentythirteen, this is called text domain. If your theme is <a href="http://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-themes/find-translate-translation-ready-wordpress-theme/" style="color: #ea6a1b; text-decoration: none;" title="How to Find and Translate a Translation Ready WordPress Theme">translation ready</a> and you want your custom post types to be translated, then you will need to mention text domain used by your theme. You can find your theme’s text domain inside <code>style.css</code> file in your theme directory. Text domain will be mentioned in the header of the file.</div>
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Displaying Custom Post Types on Your Site</h4>
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WordPress comes with built in support for displaying your custom post types. Once you have added a few items into your new custom post type, it is time to display them on your website.</div>
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There are a couple of methods that you can use, each one has its own benefits.</div>
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Displaying Custom Post Type Using Default Archive Template</h4>
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First you can simply go to <strong>Appearance » Menus</strong> and add a custom link to your menu. This custom link is the link to your custom post type. If you are using <a href="http://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-tutorials/seo-friendly-url-structure-for-wordpress/" style="color: #ea6a1b; text-decoration: none;" title="SEO Friendly URL Structure for WordPress">SEO friendly permalinks</a> then your CPT’s URL will most likely be something like this:</div>
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<code>http://example.com/movies</code></div>
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If you are not using SEO friendly <a href="http://www.wpbeginner.com/glossary/permalinks/" style="color: #ea6a1b; text-decoration: none;" title="What is a Permalink?">permalinks</a>, then your custom post type URL will be something like this:</div>
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<code>http://example.com/?post_type=movies</code></div>
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Replace example.com with your own domain name and movies with your custom post type name. Save your menu and then visit the front-end of your website. You will see the new menu you added, and when you click on it, it will display your custom post type archive page using the archive.php template file in your theme.</div>
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Using Custom Templates for CPT Archives and Single Entries</h4>
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If you don’t like the appearance of the archive page for your custom post type, then you can use dedicated <a href="http://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-tutorials/how-to-create-a-custom-post-types-archive-page-in-wordpress/" style="color: #ea6a1b; text-decoration: none;" title="How to Create a Custom Post Type Archive Page in WordPress">template for custom post type archive</a>. To do that all you need to do is create a new file in your theme directory and name it <code>archive-movies.php</code>. Replace movies with the name of your custom post type.</div>
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For geting started, you can copy the contents of your theme’s <code>archive.php</code> file into<code>archive-movies.php</code> template and then start modifying it to meet your needs. Now whenever the archive page for your custom post type is accessed, this template will be used to display it.</div>
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Similarly, you can also create a custom template for your post type’s single entry display. To do that you need to create <code>single-movies.php</code> in your theme directory. Don’t forget to replace movies with the name of your custom post type.</div>
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You can get started by copying the contents of your theme’s <code>single.php</code> template into <code>single-movies.php</code> template and then start modifying it to meet your needs.</div>
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Displaying Custom Post Types on The Front Page</h4>
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One advantage of using custom post types is that it keeps your custom content types away from your regular posts. However, if you would like them to display among your regular post, then you can do so by adding this code into your theme’s functions.php file or a site-specific plugin:</div>
<pre><span style="color: red;">add_action( 'pre_get_posts', 'add_my_post_types_to_query' );

function add_my_post_types_to_query( $query ) {
 if ( is_home() && $query->is_main_query() )
  $query->set( 'post_type', array( 'post', 'movies' ) );
 return $query;
}</span></pre>
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Don’t forget to replace <code>movies</code> with your custom post type.</div>
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Querying Custom Post Types</h4>
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If you are familiar with the coding and would like to run loop queries in your templates, then here is how to do that (Related: <a href="http://www.wpbeginner.com/glossary/loop/" style="color: #ea6a1b; text-decoration: none;" title="What is a Loop in WordPress?">What is a Loop?</a>).</div>
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By querying the database, you can retrieve items from a custom post type.</div>
<pre><span style="color: red;"><?php 
$args = array( 'post_type' => 'movies', 'posts_per_page' => 10 );
$the_query = new WP_Query( $args ); 
?>
<?php if ( $the_query->have_posts() ) : ?>
<?php while ( $the_query->have_posts() ) : $the_query->the_post(); ?>
<h2><?php the_title(); ?></h2>
<div class="entry-content">
<?php the_content(); ?> 
</div>
<?php wp_reset_postdata(); ?>
<?php else:  ?>
<p><?php _e( 'Sorry, no posts matched your criteria.' ); ?></p>
<?php endif; ?></span></pre>
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In this code, first we have defined the post type and posts per page in the arguments for our new WP_Query class. After that we ran our query, retrieved the posts and displayed them inside the loop.</div>
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Displaying Custom Post Types in Widgets</h4>
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You will notice that there is a default <a href="http://www.wpbeginner.com/glossary/widgets/" style="color: #ea6a1b; text-decoration: none;" title="What is a WordPress widget?">widget</a> in WordPress to display recent posts. But this widget does not allow you to choose a custom post type. What if you wanted to display latest entries from your newly created post type in a widget? There is an easy way to do this.</div>
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First thing you need to do is install and activate the <a href="http://wordpress.org/plugins/ultimate-posts-widget/" rel="nofollow" style="color: #ea6a1b; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" title="Ultimate Posts Widget">Ultimate Posts Widget</a> plugin. Upon activation, simply go to <strong>Appearance » Widgets</strong> and drag and drop the Ultimate Posts widget to a sidebar.</div>
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This powerful widget will allow you to show recent posts from any post types. You can also display post excerpt with a read more link or even show a featured image next to post title. Configure the widget by selecting the options you want and by selecting your custom post type. After that save your changes and see the widget in action on your website.</div>
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How to Create Custom Post Types in WordPress

Often people mistakenly classify WordPress as just a blogging platform. Over the past years, WordPress has evolved into a robust content management system. By default WordPress comes with post and pages as the main content types. However you can create as many custom content types as you like, and …

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