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.