Reply To: How to disable auto JSON sync for some field groups?

• John Huebner

• November 8, 2021 at 2:55 pm

The first thing you need to do is to add an acf-json folder to the child theme.

The second is to not unset the child them load point

// changes loading location for custom fields
add_filter('acf/settings/load_json', 'my_acf_json_load_point');
function my_acf_json_load_point( $paths ) {
    // remove original path (optional)
    // do not do this
    //unset($paths[0]);
    
    // append path
    $paths[] = get_template_directory() . '/custom-fields';
    
    // return
    return $paths;
}

What will happen. JSON will be loaded from the child theme first, only field groups that do not exist in the child theme will be loaded by the parent theme.

Then you need to alter the save point code to only alter the save point for the fields you want to always load from the parent theme and not be overridden by the child theme. This takes 2 filters

The first filter adds the save point filter only to selected field groups when they are saved

add_action('acf/update_field_group', 'my_acf_json_update_field_group', 1, 1);
function my_acf_json_update_field_group($group) {
  // list of field groups you want to save to parent theme
  $groups = array(
    'group_12345678',
    'group_23456789',
    // etc...
  );
  if (in_array($group['key'], $groups)) {
    add_filter('acf/settings/save_json',  'my_acf_json_save_point', 9999);
  }
  return $group;
}

remove your other add_filter line

add_filter('acf/settings/save_json', 'my_acf_json_save_point');

and this will only affect the field groups specified in the first filter

function my_acf_json_save_point($path) {
  // remove this filter so that it will not affect other field groups
  remove_filter('acf/settings/save_json',  'my_acf_json_save_point', 9999);
    // update path
    $path = get_template_directory() . '/custom-fields';
    
    // return
    return $path;
}