Feature request: Change layout (and keep data)

• sergiozambrano

• June 22, 2015 at 9:28 am

Can you please to allow to “Change Layout type” on flexible content rows?

We took care to name the fields the same, so the info is shared between layouts, but there’s no way to switch to a different layout once it’s created.
Or is it? (not programmatically)

• Jonathan

• June 23, 2015 at 3:26 am

Hi @sergiozambrano

No there’s no way to change the layout of an already created row (on a posts edit-page for example) since the fields in a layout can be (and should be, otherwise whats the point) very different. There’s no guarantee the same type of fields or fieldnames exists between different layouts so trying to add this as a feature would be pretty much impossible I think.

You’d simply have to create a new row with the layout you want and copy paste the values over and then delete the old layout row.

• sergiozambrano

• June 27, 2015 at 8:58 am

This reply has been marked as private.

• John Huebner

• June 27, 2015 at 10:09 am

I understand that you’re not happy that you thought you were going to be able to use the same fields and swap layouts, but a post blasting Jonathan and the developer is hardly going to help you. With the way that ACF built what you are looking for is very unlikely to happen.

And Jonathan is not one of the developers of this plugin, nor am I. We’re just here to try an help people that need it and point them in the right direction.

The problem here is that you did not understand how flexible content fields work and assumed that they could do something that they cannot do. I generally like to make sure I know what a plugin will do before I make plans based on assumptions.

There are cases where flexible content fields are not the solution and repeater fields and conditional logic are a better choice. As in the case where the same basic fields will be used over and over again and you’re going to want to swap layouts and keep the same content.

• Jonathan

• June 28, 2015 at 6:57 pm

Hi @sergiozambrano

Please keep a civil tone. As John says we are not developers of this plugin and are merely here to provide help and insight where needed.

I’m sorry you where offended by my response. Know that you where not giving much information about your setup so instead of maybe giving you a satisfying amount of help I merely attempted to answer the simple question “Is it possible to change layout of an existing row?”.

The main point of ACF is to act as a GUI for WordPress built in functionality of meta data. To provide ease of use for specific types of data like date-fields, repeated information (repeater and flexible field) etc. As well as to provide a simple API to interact with these values. However you can’t see ACF as a solution to everything.

There are always going to be cases where it’d make more sense to create fields etc. yourself. Or even better, create your own add-on to ACF with your own functionality and extend on the excellent base ACF provides.

• sergiozambrano

• June 29, 2015 at 3:40 pm

My tone is civil. The worst thing I said is “you are wrong”, which is my opinion, based in the answers you give me. Please don’t take it personal, as none of my words insinuated that.

For the ammount of words… sorry, but I need them to be clear when i think I’m not being understood. Maybe your developers could consider not to dismiss a request with a rushed up answer? When an answer doesn’t add up, I bring it up.

The repeater fields doesn’t work to make field layouts… Maybe I was confused because YOU DID call them “layouts”!

The repeater field leaves a hole in table mode when the fields are conditionally hidden (of course, because there’s a table header needing to match)

The word “layout” DOES REFER to the ARRANGEMENT of things, NOT to the types and data or the data itself. I don’t feel bad by thinking they were meant to work as layouts.

Can you think any other way to prevent the browser to become unresponsive with 10 rows of 8 wysiwyg fields each? (I’m not even counting the conditionally hidden ones!)

I do need the wysiwyg fields, to let the user to enter bullet points because of the nesting levels…

Unless you add some kind of YAML field? where users can quickly enter data with leading dashes or tabs, to define lists, arrays…

Later we, programmers, could convert each nesting level into title, content, even complex layouts, from plain text. Without the need for multiple wysiwyg fields, or field layouts.

Thanks.