Custom Content Types

Articles, Pages and Projects cover a lot of ground, but sometimes your content deserves a home of its own: Recipes, Events, Podcast episodes, Team members, Products… A custom content type gives you exactly that — a new section in the admin, its own list page on your site, and its own web addresses — without mixing those items in with your blog posts.

A custom content type behaves like the built-in ones: same editor, same featured image, categories, tags, SEO fields and scheduling. Combine it with Custom Fields to add the details that are specific to it (a prep time for a recipe, a date and a location for an event).

Where to find it

In the admin sidebar, open Content → Content Types. The page has two parts: a form at the top to add a new type, and a table below listing every existing type.

Creating a content type

Fill in the form and click Add content type. Only the first field is required.

Name

The name of one item, in the singular: "Recipe", "Event", "Team member". This is what you'll see on the "Add" button and in headings. It can be up to 60 characters, and the first letter is capitalized automatically.

Plural name

How the type is called when you talk about several items: "Recipes", "Events", "Team members". It's used for the sidebar entry, the list page title and the menu builder.

Leave it empty if the plural is the same as the name (for example "News"). In that case the list page and the individual items share the same address root.

Advanced options

Most of the time you can ignore this section: everything in it is generated from the names you typed above. Open it when you want to control the technical details yourself.

Identifier

The internal name of the type, used as the name of the folder where its content is stored. Use lowercase letters, numbers and hyphens only (for example recipe or team-member). If you leave it empty, it is generated from the name.

A few rules apply:

• It must be unique.
• A few words are reserved and can't be used: category, tag, home, search and admin.
• It can't be the singular or plural form (adding or removing an "s") of an existing identifier — project and projects would be too easy to mix up.

URL of an item

The first part of the web address of a single item. With recipe, a recipe called "Apple pie" lives at /recipe/apple-pie/. If left empty, it's generated from the name.

URL of the list

The web address of the page that lists every item of the type. With recipes, visitors can browse all your recipes at /recipes/. If left empty, it's generated from the plural name (or from the item URL when there's no plural name).

Both URLs are cleaned up automatically: lowercase, no accents, no spaces. They also have to be free — a URL already used by another content type, or reserved by the CMS (the category and tag pages, for example), is refused with an explanatory message.

Using your new content type

As soon as the type exists:

1. It appears under Content in the sidebar, with a counter, under its plural name.
2. Click it to see its list, and use Add new to write your first item. The editor is the same as for any other content (see Writing & Publishing).
3. To add specific fields, go to Settings → Custom Fields: your type now has its own block there.
4. To link to the list page from your navigation, add it in the Menu Builder.
5. Categories and tags work on the new type the same way they do on articles. See Organizing with Categories & Tags.

What the table shows

Below the form, every type is listed with:

• Name and Plural — editable directly in the table for custom types.
• URLs — the item address and the list address. Click them to open the same advanced fields as in the creation form, plus the identifier.
• Items — how many items the type contains.
• Actions — Save to apply your changes, and a trash button to delete the type.

Articles, Pages and Projects appear in the table marked as Built-in: they can't be renamed or deleted from here (their labels are changed in Settings → Reading).

Changing a content type later

• Renaming the labels is always safe.
• Changing the identifier moves the type's content to the new folder and updates everything that refers to it: menu entries, custom fields, related content and comments. The public URLs don't change.
• Changing a URL changes the public address of every item of the type. Links you or others have shared, and search engine results, will point to the old address — if the site is already live, set up a redirect with the Redirects plugin.

Deleting a content type

A type can only be deleted when it contains no items. If it still has content, the trash button is replaced by a message: delete the items first. Deleting a type never touches Articles, Pages or Projects.

How it looks on your site

Your theme decides how a custom type is displayed. For a single item, Synaptik looks for a template in this order:

1. A template made specifically for the type, named after its identifier (content-recipe.php for a recipe type).
2. The article layout of your active theme.
3. A simple generic layout provided by the CMS.

So a custom type always renders something sensible, even in a theme that knows nothing about it. If you want a dedicated layout, ask your theme developer for a template named after the identifier — or see the developer documentation on theming.