New field type: how to save data

• Jelmer

• November 27, 2013 at 3:36 am

Hi there,

Great work on the plugin, using it a lot here.

I created a new field type called “interactive_images” following your guide at http://www.advancedcustomfields.com/resources/tutorials/creating-a-new-field-type/.
My new type gets recognized and I can apply it succesfully in a post.
I’ve also build the back-end form to filled in by the user, which looks like this for several rows: http://d.pr/i/O2m6
My main question is: how do I get data from there, into the database?
The tutorial unfortunately ends where I need more information.

I’ve created the UI inside the function create_field( $field ) {} in HTML/PHP, but how to save the chosen values to the database?

This is what I’ve got so far: https://gist.github.com/jelmerdemaat/7661494

Thanks in advance,

Jelmer

• Elliot

• November 27, 2013 at 4:23 pm

Hi @Jelmer
Have you tried to simply save the post and see what goes into the DB?

Looking at the code, it seems that all the data will be nicely formated into a nested array, so ACF will save it as a serialized array and give this back to you when ACF leads the value.

Perhaps some testing is needed on your end to determine if and where there is a problem.

Thanks
E

• Jelmer

• November 27, 2013 at 9:51 pm

Hi @elliot,

These fields appear correctly as I have filled in: http://d.pr/i/GIJQ
But my own field interactive_image is not even there.
I have a feeling I’m missing a step, but where?
Could it be because I added the new field type it to an existing content part?

Best regards,
Jelmer

• Jelmer

• November 28, 2013 at 12:21 am

Hi,

Everything seems to work better now that I have adjusted the values for name and value:

'name' => $key.'[interactive_image_tag'.$tagnr.'][top]', 'value' => $field['value']['interactive_image_tag'.$tagnr]['top']

Now things do get saved to the database. I have a new field[‘value’] array that is filled with the data. But something with the default values is still going wrong.
When I use the reference to the defaults, I always see the default value.
When I use the reference to the real values, I don’t get the default fallback.

I have applied $field = array_merge($this->defaults, $field);.
Updated code is at https://gist.github.com/jelmerdemaat/7661494

• Elliot

• November 28, 2013 at 10:15 am

Hi @Jelmer

I don[t quite understand the problem with the $defaults array, but perhaps you could debug your code line by line to specify which line is not correct and why.

Thanks
E