Source: http://perishablepress.com/press/2008/12/22/wordpress-custom-fields-tips-tricks/

Display values of a specific key

To loop through and display the values of a specific key, place the following within the loop of your choice, and change the “mood” value to that of your desired key value:

<?php echo get_post_meta($post->ID, 'mood', true); ?>

Display multiple values of a specific key

Each custom-field key may include multiple values. For example, if you listen to multiple songs during a given post, you may want to list them all with a key of “songs”. Then to loop through and display the multiple values for the songs key, we place the following code into the loop of choice:

<?php $songs = get_post_meta($post->ID, 'songs', false); ?>
	<h3>This post inspired by:</h3>
	<ul>
		<?php foreach($songs as $song) {
			echo '<li>'.$song.'</li>';
			} ?>
	</ul>

Notice the trick here: by changing the third parameter to “false”, we tell the function to return an array of the values for the specified key. A very handy trick for displaying multiple key values.

Display content only if a custom field exists

For cases when not all posts contain some specific custom-field key, use the following code to prevent unwanted, empty or incomplete markup from destroying the validity of your page:

// display an image based on custom-field value, if it exists

<?php $image = get_post_meta($post->ID, 'url', true);

	if($image) : ?>

	<img src="<?php echo $image; ?>" alt="" />

	<?php endif; ?>

Conditional display of custom-field data

Continuing with the previous technique, here is a basic code template for displaying a list of key values only if they exist:

<?php if(get_post_meta($post->ID, 'books', true) ||
	 get_post_meta($post->ID, 'music', true) ||
	 get_post_meta($post->ID, 'sites', true)
	 ): ?>

	<ul>
		<?php if(get_post_meta($post->ID, 'books', true)): ?>
		<li><?php echo get_post_meta($post->ID, 'books', true); ?></li>
		<?php endif; ?>

		<?php if(get_post_meta($post->ID, 'music', true)): ?>
		<li><?php echo get_post_meta($post->ID, 'music', true); ?></li>
		<?php endif; ?>

		<?php if(get_post_meta($post->ID, 'sites', true)): ?>
		<li><?php echo get_post_meta($post->ID, 'sites', true); ?></li>
		<?php endif; ?>
	</ul>

<?php endif; ?>

More conditional content based on custom-field values

Here’s another neat trick whereby custom-field values are used to determine which type of content appears on a page. In this example, we are checking the value of of a custom-field key called “hobbies”. Depending on the value of the hobbies key, different links are output on the page. Check it out:

<?php $value = get_post_meta($post->ID, 'hobbies', true);

	if($value == 'gaming') {
		echo '<a href="http://domain.tld/gaming/">Gaming Stuff</a>';
	} elseif($value == 'sleeping') {
		echo '<a href="http://domain.tld/sleeping/">Nap Supplies</a>';
	} elseif($value == 'eating') {
		echo '<a href="http://domain.tld/eating/">Dieting Advice</a>';
	} else {
		echo '<a href="http://domain.tld/">Home Page</a>';
	}

?>

Simplification and externalization

To clean up our source code a little, we can relocate the get_post_meta() function to the theme’s functions.php file. The immediate benefit here is one less parameter to include in the template tag. To do this, first place the following code into your theme’s functions.php file:

<?php function get_custom_field_data($key, $echo = false) {
	global $post;
	$value = get_post_meta($post->ID, $key, true);
	if($echo == false) {
		return $value;
	} else {
		echo $value;
	}
}
?>

..and then call the function by placing this code in the desired location within your page template:

<?php if(function_exists('get_custom_field_data')) {
	get_custom_field_data('key', true);
} ?>

The only thing you need to edit here is the value of the “key” parameter, which should be the same as the key for which you would like to display value data. The second parameter is currently set as “true” so that the key value is echoed to the browser. To save the key value as a variable for further processing, change this parameter to “false”.

On the current Mortfiles website I have no less than 3 wordpress installations for different purposes mixed with static files and includes in one big mess, although it’s a working mess. This is not a very efficient way to handle a website obviously and it’s far easier to merge all areas into one, controlled by one administrative interface. This is where Wordpress comes in.

Now, how do I intend to make all the areas of the old website merge into the Mortfiles Evolved website? The short answer is that I don’t. There will be several areas that will be cut out and the remaining areas will work just fine using the Wordpress backend through some creative use of templates and custom coding.  The most interesting part of the project will be to use the post feature both for blogging and to maintain a portfolio, both with different designs and different setup. That will be dealt with by making some creative use of the Wordpress template system so that posts under the portfolio for example will use a specific template instead of the default that will be reserved for the blog. Once setup I will be able to maintain both the website, the blog and the portfolio with very little effort.

The advantages of this also include taking advantage of the Wordpress plugin system that has alot of great features such as automatic sitemaps (both in html and xml), Cache system, RSS feeds, newsletters and much, much more. It also means that it’s possible to take advantage of the Wordpress search system to make the entire website searchable. This is in addition to a great content management system that is easy and fun to use that hold a flexible template system.

All in all this gives a more uniform impression and I think it will be more fun for me to work with, a better experience for my clients and a much more dynamic website for potential clients. Fingers crossed.

I have been pondering many approaches for making Mortfiles Evolved available in both Swedish and English and so far I have looked at using a Wordpress MU setup, using the translation service like I have here on this website, getting creative with custom fields and finally using something like WPML or xLanguage.

All choices have their advantages and flaws, but I think that I will go with WPML if it turn out ok, not just for the translation features, but also for the built in navigation that has dropdown features for the subpages that I want for this project. That way I get both in one package which sounds a bit to good to be true…

Its been a while now since my last re-design of Mortfiles and to tell the truth its getting a bit bloated and unfocused, which is not exactly promoting sales and its holding me back from getting creative.

In order to fix this I am starting a project where I will rebuild Mortfiles to be a more focused project that IS focused on business and not as a playground for my mad ideas. This project will also merge Mortfiles.com and Mortfiles.se into one dual language website using Wordpress as backend. The new design will be more focused on sale and it will take advantage of JQuery to make things easier and better looking.

I am also going to work with WHMCS to build a better orderform to make things a whole lot nicer, which is something that I have put off for a while now as my heart has not really been in it. The WHMCS package is still the best for the job, but I will now merge the two installations into one, which means dual languages and dual currency setup.

I am going to change the project manager for Mortfiles Evolved and will go for Active Collab instead as I find it more intuitive and nicer in design to work with. I will rework it a bit to make it even more awesome, both through design and hopefully by extending it with some modules down the road.

Right now I am in the scribbling phase where I poke design thoughts and try to figure out what should go where and why, but hopefully it will come together soon enough.