In this session we talk about the rationale for using custom post types and custom taxonomies and show different examples of these in BYOBWebsite. We also talk about switching query boxes to a custom post using its own template system to copy it over.
Video Transcript
Member: You know, if you read my question it relates to a lot of these things including the last question because what I was asking you about and my concern right now is deciding between taxonomies, pages, custom post types and a lot of the reason why is because with all the flexibility that you’ve given us you know, as you laid out this you know, the testimonial published in a publishing system and then the attention boxes and all those different options.
What I’m concerned about would be first of all, at each time I do that what I was doing with the attention boxes creating a separate page everytime I’d have them inserted and whether or not I had additional content I wanted to jump to and I’m seeing that on the examples you just gave you know, (00:59) amount of questions and I’m thinking should I create a series of different custom post types just so I don’t have tons of pages you know, (01:15) under pages or posts.
Rick: Well that’s the main reason I did it, right because Courses is a custom post type, Seminars is a custom post type, Case Studies is a custom post type and Live Answers is a custom post type. Those 4 things combined if they were all in the same interface there would be 3500 of them and that’s just way, way, way too many to manage in one interface and so you know, I broke them up into those post types mainly for that reason so that…
Member: There was two on the right are just taxonomies but you got it in the same…
Rick: No. The two on the right Lesson Subjects and Topics those are just taxonomies, right.
Member: Okay so but you’ve got in the same menu bar and you can mix and match as you want to.
Rick: Oh, yes absolutely. Yeah, yeah.
Member: Okay, that’s really what… that’s and again you answered the question because that’s what I wasn’t sure whether are there any glitches or anything. I needed to be aware of with regards to the organization of the custom post types as you know, you were saying. In the organization you’ve got to think about categories, you’ve got to think about that but as far as SEO goes…
Rick: Right.
Member: So there’s no… and in the custom post types do I make them posts or do I make them pages or it doesn’t matter at all?
Rick: Well, custom post types you have a choice between hierarchical and nonhierarchical really, that’s your primary choice and..
Member: Okay.
Rick: Hierarchical means you can have child pages and parent pages and non-hierarchical means you don’t have parent and child pages so…
Member: So you choose post okay it gives you the option of post, okay.
Rick: Well, so my Live Answers is a non-hierarchical post type that means it behaves just like post does and that it’s you know, one after the other and there’s no inherent organization in the post type, all of its organization comes from its difficulty level, what topics it’s under, what lessons it is under and which version of Thesis applies to it, that’s where all of its organization comes from.
On the other hand, Seminars which are really my main body of content these days are Seminars and Seminars are hierarchical and so you know, the big hierarchy or let’s go back to this you know, the main parent is Specialty Seminars, Genesis Theme Seminars, Thesis Theme 2.x Seminars, WordPress eCommerce Seminars so on and so forth and then the child is the actual seminar itself and then that child has children which are essentially the parts of that seminar so I end up with under Seminars I have a hierarchy that’s 3-levels deep. While I do that with Seminars and Case Studies, Courses has a hierarchy that’s 4-levels deep.
Member: Yeah. It’s coming along Rick. You know when I first wrote you when I first joined I was really looking to go the direction of that Parallax. You know much more so in the direction of the parallax you know, looking at those backgrounds and everything and you know maybe if you have to buy it it’s not.. I don’t know that it’s really necessary for what I’m doing but anyway…
Rick: Well, it’s.. I mean I think it’s useful on a visually you know, if you have a visually dramatic business, right. So if you’re a photographer or a web designer or outdoor outfitter or used-car salesperson or something where you can showcase images then it is. I think it’s a very useful tool I mean if you are an insurance agent it’s not because then you’re just putting images in there to put images in, right?
Member: Yeah. Well my first, again it would just exactly what the gentleman (06:05). The thing that first drew me was that you can get a lot of different elements you know and keep people interested scrolling down a long page and I think you know it does work that way even if you’re keeping the backgrounds really simple.
Rick: Yes.
Member: Yeah, that’s interesting.
Rick: Well and in fact… Did you see the seminar on laying out a front page using query boxes?
Member: Oh, yeah exactly I did that. And so I did that and then I went ahead and I’m thinking of what you said. Do I use the attention boxes with the query? I’ve done that I’ve already done that on the front page but then I did a whole another section that I use query boxes that I’m thinking you know, I’ve got all these pages floating everywhere and I think it’ll be organized much better if I just change the custom post and so that was the other part of my question – if I switch it from a query box to a custom post, can I move those custom posts into the same template or do I have to just rebuild that template matched to the custom post?
Rick: Well the custom post types automatically come with their own template.
Member: Right.
Rick: So you can just use the template system to copy it over, right. I mean if you are in okay come on I must have something opened here. Well, if you’re in the Skin Editor and you add a new custom template…
Member: But what if I got my front page just like you have it with the query boxes in it?
Rick: Yeah?
Member: Can I take those query boxes and put the custom post into where those…
Rick: Absolutely! Oh, no absolutely you can, sure. The query box, if you’ve got a custom post type the query box gives you a choice of that post type.
Member: Okay, does it?
Rick: Yeah, it does.
Member: In the dropdown?
Rick: Yeah and if you’ve got custom taxonomies you know, it gives you the choice of those custom taxonomies too.
Member: So you can just make a list okay, if you just want to do it in a widget or something? Okay, perfect. It was a little bit long session.