Custom Admin Columns for Multiple CPTs

• mtm

• August 14, 2019 at 2:28 am

I am trying to define different admin columns for different Custom Post Types, each using a different set of ACF fields. I’ve declared my CPTs as follows:

add_action('init', 'all_custom_post_types');

function all_custom_post_types() {
  $types = array(
    //Events
    array('the_type' => 'event',
          'single' => 'Event',
          'plural' => 'Events'),
    //Releases
    array('the_type' => 'release',
          'single' => 'Release',
          'plural' => 'Releases'),
  );

foreach ($types as $type) {
  $the_type = $type['the_type'];
    $single = $type['single'];
    $plural = $type['plural'];
  $labels = array(
      'name' => _x($plural, 'post type general name'),
      'singular_name' => _x($single, 'post type singular name'),
      'add_new' => _x('Add New', $single),
      'add_new_item' => __('Add New '. $single),
      'edit_item' => __('Edit '.$single),
      'new_item' => __('New '.$single),
      'view_item' => __('View '.$single),
      'search_items' => __('Search '.$plural),
      'not_found' =>  __('No '.$plural.' found'),
      'not_found_in_trash' => __('No '.$plural.' found in Trash'),
      'parent_item_colon' => ''
    );
    $args = array(
      'labels' => $labels,
      'public' => true,
      'publicly_queryable' => true,
      'show_ui' => true,
      'query_var' => true,
      'rewrite' => true,
      'capability_type' => 'post',
      'hierarchical' => false,
      'has_archive' => true,
      'menu_position' => 5,
      'supports' => array('title','editor','thumbnail'),
      'show_in_menu' => true,
      'show_in_nav_menus' => true
    );

    register_post_type($the_type, $args);
  }
}

All good so far. The trouble comes when attempting to make these sortable at the “All posts” level of the admin area by specific ACF fields. Events and Releases have completely different sets of data.

Looking at this post – https://www.elliotcondon.com/advanced-custom-fields-admin-custom-columns/ – I can see how I would do this for a single CPT, but what if I want the “All Events” screen to show (say) date, venue and location (all ACF fields) but the “All Releases” screen to offer columns for release year, artist and label?

Is it possible to specify somewhere when declaring custom columsn which CPT they should apply to, and do this several times over, once per CPT?

• John Huebner

• August 15, 2019 at 10:30 pm

There are 2 filters in WP that let you do this, one to add the columns and another to add the column content

columns: https://codex.wordpress.org/Plugin_API/Filter_Reference/manage_edit-post_type_columns

column content: https://codex.wordpress.org/Plugin_API/Action_Reference/manage_$post_type_posts_custom_column