Reply To: Duplicating contents of flexible layout group

• jrwdev

• February 18, 2016 at 6:30 am

This is my biggest priority with ACF. It’s been a great asset over the years, but this feature would make it the most powerful template builder for WordPress. Using the Flexible Content field, I’ve been able to create a set of “modules” that I use on every site I build. When I create a new page for the site, I just add some modules, pop in the content, and I’m done. It allows me to have repeatable flexible layouts in the easiest way I can imagine. Great work, Elliot!

The only thing that’s missing here is the ability to duplicate a field group that has been populated with data. So, for instance, a user creates a page and clicks to add a banner layout (“module”). They input all of the settings I’ve created to make the banner, and it looks great. Now they want to create another banner right below that on the page, but instead of copying the module they’ve already created, they have to start all over and enter in all of those settings from scratch. The ability to duplicate a flexible layout with all of the data that’s been entered into a previous layout is essential for rapid production.

The next extension of this issue is duplicating modules between different pages. A user sees a page on the site that they like a piece of. They go to the admin and click on Add New page. Since I’ve setup the site in modules, it’s easy to recreate any of the pieces from any page that exists on the site. However, the same problem exists as above; they have to recreate all of the settings from scratch. It would be awesome if we could create a custom_post_type called “templates” or something similar, and save the settings of a specific layout as a “template”. Then we could choose from the pre-created templates (similar to default values) when adding a layout to a page.

If anyone knows if this already exists, I’d love to hear about it. If not, this piece would make this already awesome plugin the best page builder on the market. The API is better than anything else out there for creating fields. And the design is rock-solid.