WordPress: Templates & Custom Fields

[JimOfferman]

Does anyone here know if the following is possible and, if so, how to set it up:

Let's say I have a page template called 'Song' that uses a custom field called 'Lyrics'. Can I make it so that when I create a new page and set the template to be 'Song', that the 'Lyrics' custom field will be automatically added to that page?

I've been plowing through the codex, but I cannot find anything that says this is or is not possible...

Any help appreciated!

thx,
Jim.

[jamestl2]

Have you looked at this page?:
Using Custom Fields « WordPress Codex

It sounds like what you want is to use a the_meta() template tag, which has to be a part of the loop.

[JimOfferman]

Yes, I read that page. But it only explains how I get my 'Lyrics' custom field onto the page that the website visitor sees.

But I'm talking about the administrator interface. What I want is for WordPress to somehow "know" that the Song template uses this field, so I don't have manually add the custom field to every song page I create. That would be highly convenient, because I'll be adding quite a few songs...

[jamestl2]

This is probably something you'd want to ask over in the WP.org support forums, as they'd be much more knowledgeable on the subject.

One more thing I may suggest ATM is looking at this basic tutorial:
Using WordPress Custom Fields: Introduction: Using WordPress Custom Fields tutorial series

This quote from the article *might* be able to apply to what you want:

What do I do with this information? You can pull this information out in posts, on other pages, into sidebars, or wherever.

To give a list of your book reviews in alphabetical order with the author’s name, you could create a custom field with a Key named “author” and a Value of “The Author’s Name” for several posts, or reviews. After writing these reviews and putting them into your “Book Reviews” category, you would put together a page called “Book Reviews” or create a category-specific template for your “Book Reviews” category.

Here’s how you would list each book review (category=27 would need to be changed to your “Book Reviews” category ID):

<ul>
<?php
$book_reviews = get_posts('category=27&numberposts=-1&orderby=post_name&order=ASC');
foreach($book_reviews as $post) : setup_postdata($post);
?>
<li>
<a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>" title="<?php the_title(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a>
<?php $author = get_post_meta($post->ID, "author", $single = true);
	if($author !== '') {
	echo 'by ' . $author;
	} ?>
</li>
<?php endforeach; ?>
</ul>

[JimOfferman]

Originally Posted by jamestl2

This quote from the article *might* be able to apply to what you want:

Thanks James, but that tutorial explains the bit that I already understand - namely how to use custom fields in my site. I want to talk to the WordPress page editor itself!

But your suggestions do highlight the reason why I have a hard time finding my answer: everyone (Google included) assumes I'm looking for help on how to use the fields in the website...

I'll try my luck on the WordPress forums...

[jpfieber]

I think the problem you're running into is that in order to have a custom field for a post, the field must have a value. There is no sense displaying a field if there is no value for it. Depending on what you're doing, you may want to see if tags might do what you need. Where previously I was using a custom field and entering a value of 'true' to help me organize some posts that I didn't necessarily want in a full-blown category, now I just add a tag, and can view those posts on a /tag/ page, and create custom templates for that page.