Selecting Category from Frontend Form

• amurray

• August 24, 2015 at 8:51 am

I have a form that creates new posts and works well for taking my title & content from the form and putting them into a new post. I would like to have category also selected through the form. I created a field with selections that match my categories, but am not sure how to have those added to the new post. If there is a way to use the standard WP categories directly on my form that would work, but if not how can I have my field of the categories pushed to the WP categories when the form makes the new post?

I tried adding it to the new_post code but that did not work.

'new_post'		=> array(
			'post_type'		=> '',
			'post_status'		=> 'publish',
			'post_title'    => $_POST['acf']['field_558eb15c51fc7'], // Post Title ACF field key
			'post_content'  => $_POST['acf']['field_558eb19c51fc8'], // Post Content ACF field key
			'post_category' => $_POST['acf']['field_55d73c0ee19e4'], // Post Category ACF field key
					),

I also setup my category field in ACF to be the category ID for its value but this also does not seem to work

Thanks for any assistance.

• Jonathan

• August 25, 2015 at 6:09 am

Hi,

Are you using ACF PRO? (v5)

• amurray

• August 25, 2015 at 11:11 am

Yes I have ACFPro V5.

Andy

• Jonathan

• August 25, 2015 at 3:14 pm

Okay,

Could you post the whole code you’re using to create the form?

I’m not sure if you already are but you should use acf_form() function to create the form. That way you’ll get everything working right of the bat 🙂

http://www.advancedcustomfields.com/resources/acf_form/

• amurray

• August 26, 2015 at 9:54 am

Function.php

function acf_review_before_save_post($post_id) {
	if (empty($_POST['acf']))
		return;
	$_POST['acf']['_post_title'] = $_POST['acf']['field_558eb15c51fc7'];
	$_POST['acf']['_post_content'] = $_POST['acf']['field_558eb19c51fc8'];
	$_POST['acf']['_post_category'] = $_POST['acf']['field_55d73c0ee19e4'];
	return $post_id;
}
add_action('acf/pre_save_post', 'acf_review_before_save_post', -1);

Template for page with form

<?php acf_form(array(
 'post_id'	=> 'new_post',
 'new_post'	=> array(
   'post_type'	=> '',
   'post_status'=> 'publish',
   'post_title'  => $_POST['acf']['field_558eb15c51fc7'], // Post Title ACF field key
   'post_content'  => $_POST['acf']['field_558eb19c51fc8'], // Post Content ACF field key
   'post_category' => $_POST['acf']['field_55d73c0ee19e4'], // Post Category ACF field key
),
   'field_groups'   => array(317), // Create post field group ID(s)
   'form'               => true,
//'return'             => '%post_url%', // Redirect to new post url
   'html_before_fields' => '',
   'html_after_fields'  => '',
   'submit_value'       => 'Submit Post',
   'updated_message'    => 'Saved!',
    'uploader' 			 => 'wp',
    'return' 		=> '/'
   )); ?>

• Jonathan

• August 26, 2015 at 7:33 pm

Hi @amurray

I’m not able to wrap my head around where you place the acf_form(); function.

You’re using acfs internal $_POST values in the acf_form function but that would require that you’re at a page posted to by ACF already.
How are people directed to the page template where you use this acf_form?

• amurray

• August 26, 2015 at 10:21 pm

I have a page that has basically just this form on it. It is link directly from a menu button. If there are better ways to do this than I am open to suggestions. The pages works well for creating the posts and copying my title field & content field to the standard WP post fields.

It could be that the _Post lines in the template are not actually working and it is the ones in the function.php that are actually doing the copying from the front-end form to the WP posts. I did initially have issues with these fields not populating & did some searching to find the code that is in my function.php section.

Andy

• amurray

• August 29, 2015 at 9:13 am

Jonathan,

Any further suggestions on making this work?

Thanks.
Andy

• Jonathan

• September 2, 2015 at 5:22 am

Hi Andy,

Sorry I’ve been involved in some personal stuff the past few days 🙂

To be honest I’ve not used the acf_form in this sense before.
What seems strange to me is that you’re setting post_title, post_content and post_category by using $_POST values but if you’re sending the user to this form with just a button there wont be any $_POST variables like this.

The way I’d do it is to just have a taxonomy field on the posts which are mapping the post to the terms (categories) and then add it to the acf_form by setting it in the field_group. Then for the title and content you have built in parameters in acf_form to let users type into those.

Something like:

<?php acf_form(array(
	'post_id'	=> 'new_post',
	'new_post'	=> array(
	   'post_type'	=> 'post',
	   'post_status'=> 'publish'
	),
   'field_groups'   => array(317, 123), // 317 is your existing field group and 123 is a madeup which contains the taxonomy field.
   'submit_value'       => 'Submit Post',
   'updated_message'    => 'Saved!'
)); ?>

You shouldn’t need to mess with $_POST parameters and filters.

• amurray

• September 2, 2015 at 10:20 am

Jonathan – thanks for all your assistance and hope everything is ok.

Disregard this Post. I needed to check the save terms to post option for the taxonomy custom field

I did as you recommended and the taxonomy does now show the categories that can be selected but these are not put to the post once it is created. I mean the form creates the new posts but they still list as Uncategorized in the post info. The ACF taxonomy field is keeping the selection from the fronted form but I am looking to use the standard WP categories like under each post the theme lists the category associated with that post.

Thanks
Andy

• Jonathan

• September 4, 2015 at 7:13 am

Hi Andy,

Great that everything worked out! And that you found the setting for mapping the acf field to the post>term relationship 🙂

Please feel free to open up any topic if you need further help.

• Martapetrella

• January 25, 2017 at 6:27 am

I use this code in my template

<?php acf_form(array(
 'post_id'	=> 'new_post',
 'new_post'	=> array(
   'post_type'	=> '',
   'post_status'=> 'publish',
   'post_title'  => $_POST['acf']['field_5882557e92006'].' - '.$_POST['acf']['field_5882557e9207c'].' - '.get_cat_name( $_POST['acf']['field_588713c7a61d9'] ), // Post Title ACF field key
   'post_category' => $_POST['acf']['field_588713c7a61d9'], // Post Category ACF field key
),
   'field_groups'   => array(98), // Create post field group ID(s)
   'form'               => true,
   'html_before_fields' => '',
   'html_after_fields'  => '',
   'submit_value'       => 'Submit Post',
   'updated_message'    => 'Saved!',
    'uploader' 			 => 'wp',
    'return' 		=> '/'
   )); ?>

…and that in my function.php

function acf_review_before_save_post($post_id) {
	if (empty($_POST['acf']))
		return;
	$_POST['acf']['_post_title'] =  get_cat_name( $_POST['acf']['field_588713c7a61d9'] ).' - '.$_POST['acf']['field_5882557e92006'].' - '.$_POST['acf']['field_5882557e9207c'];
	$_POST['acf']['_post_category'] = $_POST['acf']['field_588713c7a61d9'];
	return $post_id;
}
add_action('acf/pre_save_post', 'acf_review_before_save_post', -1);
?>

…and all work very well except for the _post_category.

I whant to change the real category of the post but it dosen’t change after saving.

What am I wrong?

Thanks!