Custom Fields in Joomla 3.7
New Custom Field functionality is one of the big items in Joomla 3.7; unfortunately, it is not as exciting as I expected when I first read about it a few months ago. I expected a built-in forms interface, but the ultimate result was something less, but still quite useful. There are really two parts to the implementation:
- Custom Fields in User definitions
- Custom Fields in Article
Custom Fields in User definitions
The custom fields in user definitions are quite useful, but still need some work. For a Toastmasters web site, I added a custom field for Communication Education Level
as a drop-down list of five items and a Leadership Education Level
as a drop-down of five items and grouped them as a field group of Education Level
. Now, an additional tab for Education Level
shows up for each user definition. Unfortunately, you cannot yet filter on custom fields, but that will probably come (or it is there and I just haven’t figured it out).
Custom Fields in Articles
The custom fields in articles have a similar interface to the user custom fields, but are not as useful as I had hoped. When it turned out not to be a built-in forms application, I hoped for something where I could define something like Club President
(changes every year) and have it update across articles; unfortunately, the scope of the custom field is limited to a single article. This is useful, but not as useful as it could be.