We've added Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) in Brizy Cloud

on 10 May 2021 , by Dimi, in Blog, PRO, Cloud, Updates

This is a great day for Brizy, specifically for the Brizy Cloud platform. We've added Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) in Brizy Cloud that lets you create custom assets (post types) or add/edit custom fields in your current assets.

We've always envisioned Brizy Cloud as a full-fledged cloud CMS with an Assets Builder (Custom Post Builder) and ACF (Advanced Custom Fields) functionality that will let you create complex dynamic projects. This together with our innovative approach to UI/UX makes Brizy Cloud CMS one of the best tools to create websites, blogs, and eventually online shops.

What are Advanced Custom Fields (ACF)

The Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) functionality allows you to add or edit content fields of your Brizy Cloud assets (posts or post types) or even create new custom post types altogether.

The custom content fields let you extend the Brizy Cloud posts or pages with the fields that you need, which gives you more control over your content. and ultimately paves the way for complex dynamic websites in Brizy Cloud CMS.

How to create an asset (custom post type)

Opening the advanced custom field builder is very easy and intuitive, all you have to do is open the Brizy Cloud CSM in the sidebar and go to Create Custom Assets once inside your project.

In Brizy Cloud, the Pages, Categories, Blogs, Popups, etc you see in the sidebar are called Assets so when you are creating a new entry there (using the ACF builder), you are creating a New Asset. These in the WordPress world are called custom post types.

Going forward the terms Assets / Collections / Custom Post Types are interchangeable.

This is where you'll build your new Assets (or Custom Post Type). In my example here I've created a new custom asset called Games.

In the first section you'll fill in basic asset info:

Asset Name (singular) – this is your asset name in the singular form. If you want to create a "Games" asset, for example, you'll put "Game" here. We use this name in different places in the Brizy Cloud CMS.

Asset Name (plural) – this is your asset name in plural form. This is displayed in the sidebar and across the Brizy Cloud CMS in different locations.

Asset Slug – this is the link you'll see in the browser for your assets, so for our Games example, if you put "Games" in the slug, your URLs will have this structure on the front end yourdomain/games /game-name

Asset Type – this option lets you decide if your asset is a stand-alone (single asset) or a category (archive asset). In our "Games" example, this will be a Single type asset. If we were building an asset used to categorise other assets, for example, "Genres" for our games then we would have to choose Archive for the asset type.

Asset Icon – choose an icon for your asset. This will be displayed in the sidebar once the new asset is created.

Next, you'll define the fields you want in your asset by adding fields from the bottom section. You can choose from:

Text – a regular input field, that is primarily used for text but accepts numbers and special characters as well

Rich Text – a paragraph best used for your asset excerpt or description

Email – an email field that accepts only email structured inputs like something@custom.com

Link – a URL field that accepts only URL links

Select – a dropdown select field

Image – an image upload field best used for your asset featured image. Accepts only image extensions.

Number – a number field

Reference – used to link single assets with category assets with a one-on-one relation. For example, link a single asset "Games" with a category asset "Developer". The one on one relation means one "Game" has only one "Developer".

Multi Reference – used to link single assets with category assets with a one-to-many relation. For example, link a single asset "Games" with a category asset "Genres". The one-to-many relation means one "Game" can have multiple "Genres".

Clicking any field will bring in the options for that field that lets you set the label, description, placeholder. You can also choose if the field is required or change limits based on each field.

Once you clicked the Create & Continue button, the asset will be created and it will appear in the sidebar. The custom post list will be empty since this is a new asset and it doesn't have any entries yet.

You add a new post (a new Game in my case) by clicking the Add New button. You'll be able to fill in your fields and add a new custom post.

IMPORTANT: Two fields are added on every asset by default by the Brizy Cloud CMS and are set in stone, can't be modified. Those are Asset Title (in my case Game Title) and Permalink.

How to edit your current asset/post type

At any point, you can go back to edit your custom asset by clicking on the gear icon near the asset name in the sidebar.

That will bring in the Brizy Cloud ACF builder where you can either add new fields or edit/change the current ones you have. Or delete the entire asset altogether from the bottom right Delete link.

IMPORTANT: Please take care when you delete fields that are displayed on the front end. Those will not be visible any longer to your users.

How to create & link category (taxonomies) assets

Creating an asset that will be a category for another asset it's very easy, you just create a new asset from scratch and select Archive in the Asset Type option. This will tell Brizy this is an archive type / a taxonomy / a category asset.

I've created two new assets: "Developers" & "Genres" for our "Games" and populated them with a couple of developers and popular game genres.

What remains now is to link our "Games" with the "Developers" and "Genres". Edit the Games custom asset by pressing the gear icon near the name in the sidebar and use the Reference or Multi Reference fields to link your custom asset with your categories.

Reference – used to link single assets with category assets with a one on one relation. For example, link a single asset "Games" with a category asset "Developer". The one-on-one relation means one "Game" has only one "Developer".

Multi Reference – used to link single assets with category assets with a one-to-many relation. For example, link a single asset "Games" with a category asset "Genres". The one-to-many relation means one "Game" can have multiple "Genres".

Don't forget to Save & Finish once you are done with your changes.

Now that we've added the references for our Games, when you add a new Game you'll be able to select the Developer and Genre for that game.

This will help you structure your dynamic information and create dynamic Brizy pages for your Archive categories (in my case Developers & Genres). From this point, I could easily create a Developer page where I display (via the Archive element) all the games from a certain developer.

How to display your custom dynamic content

Dynamic content lets you bring your custom post fields dynamically on a page via dynamic elements and it's very useful when you want to handle multiple posts all at once by creating templates.

Display your ACF fields in Brizy via dynamic elements like:

Archive – used to create category post listings;

Posts – used to create related posts blocks;

Or use regular elements that can be switched to a dynamic element from the "server" dynamic icon.

Text

Images

Buttons

How to create templates

The way you usually work with templates in most CMS's is you add the content somewhere (in the post) and set the templates somewhere else (a template section usually). This is most of the time hard to understand & manage. It's also hard to explain and introduces a disconnect between editing regular pages and working with dynamic content and templates.

In Brizy Cloud CMS, we are treating all assets (blog posts, custom posts, categories, pages) as regular pages. In other words, if you want to edit a blog category or blog post, you just go and edit it with Brizy and the same goes with any asset.

When you want to create a template you just drag dynamic elements in a block, set the block as global, and use the display conditions to put it across your other categories, or posts.

What's coming next

We are working on a bunch of things for Brizy Cloud we recently added webhooks and today the ACF (Advanced Custom Fields) and the Asset (custom posts) builder. Next, we have a big design update in the pipeline and we'll continue to improve the dynamic content in Brizy Cloud CMS.

Great things ahead.

Article by Dimi

Co-founder & CEO of Brizy, Dimi has a passion for Web projects with cutting-edge tech & great usability. He's always happy to share and connect with others.