We’re going to create a more easy to manage the way of generating multiple Custom Post Types.
First of all, we’re going to create a file that we’ll call it post-types.php and place it in a folder inside your theme called ‘config’.
In post-types.php we’ll create a class that generates Custom Post Types. I’ll call it DM_Project_Post_Types.
<?php
class DM_Project_Post_Types {
} // End class
new DM_Project_Post_Types;
In here we create 3 fuctions: a __construct, one to define the custom post types and one that will register them.
<?php
class DM_Project_Post_Types {
public function __construct() {
}
public function all_post_types() {
}
private function dm_register_post_type() {
}
} // End class
new DM_Project_Post_Types;
In the all_post_types function we define all the custom post types that we want to use and will pass that data into the dm_register_post_types.
public function all_post_types() {
$post_types = [
[
'post_type' => 'director',
'singular' => 'Director',
'slug' => 'director',
],
[
'post_type' => 'photographer',
'singular' => 'Photographer',
'slug' => 'photographer',
],
];
foreach ($post_types as $key => $post_type) {
$this -> dm_register_post_type( $post_type );
}
}
If you need to add custom data for ‘plural’ or other arguments, you can add them in the all_post_types function and pass them in dm_register_post_type to be used.
And the dm_register_post_type will look like this
private function dm_register_post_type( $data ) {
$singular = $data['singular'];
$plural = ( isset( $data['plural'] ) ) ? $data['plural'] : $data['singular'] . 's';
$post_type = $data['post_type'];
$slug = $data['slug'];
$labels = array(
'name' => _x( $plural, 'post type general name', 'dm-artillerie-theme' ),
'singular_name' => _x( $singular, 'post type singular name', 'dm-artillerie-theme' ),
'menu_name' => _x( $plural, 'admin menu', 'dm-artillerie-theme' ),
'name_admin_bar' => _x( $singular, 'add new on admin bar', 'dm-artillerie-theme' ),
'add_new' => _x( 'Add New', $singular, 'dm-artillerie-theme' ),
'add_new_item' => __( 'Add New ' . $singular, 'dm-artillerie-theme' ),
'new_item' => __( 'New ' . $singular, 'dm-artillerie-theme' ),
'edit_item' => __( 'Edit ' . $singular, 'dm-artillerie-theme' ),
'view_item' => __( 'View ' . $singular, 'dm-artillerie-theme' ),
'all_items' => __( 'All ' . $plural, 'dm-artillerie-theme' ),
'search_items' => __( 'Search ' . $plural, 'dm-artillerie-theme' ),
'parent_item_colon' => __( 'Parent ' . $plural . ':', 'dm-artillerie-theme' ),
'not_found' => __( 'No ' . $plural . ' found.', 'dm-artillerie-theme' ),
'not_found_in_trash' => __( 'No ' . $plural . ' found in Trash.', 'dm-artillerie-theme' )
);
$args = array(
'labels' => $labels,
'description' => __( $singular .'.', 'dm-artillerie-theme' ),
'public' => true,
'publicly_queryable' => true,
'show_ui' => true,
'show_in_menu' => true,
'query_var' => true,
'rewrite' => array( 'slug' => $slug ),
'capability_type' => 'post',
'has_archive' => false,
'hierarchical' => false,
'menu_position' => null,
'supports' => array( 'title', 'author', 'editor', 'thumbnail', 'excerpt', 'comments' )
);
register_post_type( $post_type, $args );
}
By default I added a $plural variable that will just add an ‘s’ at the end of the custom post type single in case you don’t define a plural in all_post_types.
If you want to do a small adjustment you can also define a variable from ‘textdomain’. In my case that is ‘dm-artillerie-theme’ and it’s hardcoded in there.
Now in the __construct we make sure to init the all_post_types function
public function __construct() {
add_action( 'init', array( $this, 'all_post_types' ) );
}
Your final code in the post-types.php file should look like this:
<?php
class DM_Project_Post_Types {
public function __construct() {
add_action( 'init', array( $this, 'all_post_types' ) );
}
public function all_post_types() {
$post_types = [
[
'post_type' => 'director',
'singular' => 'Director',
'slug' => 'director',
],
[
'post_type' => 'photographer',
'singular' => 'Photographer',
'slug' => 'photographer',
],
];
foreach ($post_types as $key => $post_type) {
$this -> dm_register_post_type( $post_type );
}
}
private function dm_register_post_type( $data ) {
$singular = $data['singular'];
$plural = ( isset( $data['plural'] ) ) ? $data['plural'] : $data['singular'] . 's';
$post_type = $data['post_type'];
$slug = $data['slug'];
$labels = array(
'name' => _x( $plural, 'post type general name', 'dm-artillerie-theme' ),
'singular_name' => _x( $singular, 'post type singular name', 'dm-artillerie-theme' ),
'menu_name' => _x( $plural, 'admin menu', 'dm-artillerie-theme' ),
'name_admin_bar' => _x( $singular, 'add new on admin bar', 'dm-artillerie-theme' ),
'add_new' => _x( 'Add New', $singular, 'dm-artillerie-theme' ),
'add_new_item' => __( 'Add New ' . $singular, 'dm-artillerie-theme' ),
'new_item' => __( 'New ' . $singular, 'dm-artillerie-theme' ),
'edit_item' => __( 'Edit ' . $singular, 'dm-artillerie-theme' ),
'view_item' => __( 'View ' . $singular, 'dm-artillerie-theme' ),
'all_items' => __( 'All ' . $plural, 'dm-artillerie-theme' ),
'search_items' => __( 'Search ' . $plural, 'dm-artillerie-theme' ),
'parent_item_colon' => __( 'Parent ' . $plural . ':', 'dm-artillerie-theme' ),
'not_found' => __( 'No ' . $plural . ' found.', 'dm-artillerie-theme' ),
'not_found_in_trash' => __( 'No ' . $plural . ' found in Trash.', 'dm-artillerie-theme' )
);
$args = array(
'labels' => $labels,
'description' => __( $singular .'.', 'dm-artillerie-theme' ),
'public' => true,
'publicly_queryable' => true,
'show_ui' => true,
'show_in_menu' => true,
'query_var' => true,
'rewrite' => array( 'slug' => $slug ),
'capability_type' => 'post',
'has_archive' => false,
'hierarchical' => false,
'menu_position' => null,
'supports' => array( 'title', 'author', 'editor', 'thumbnail', 'excerpt', 'comments' )
);
register_post_type( $post_type, $args );
}
} // End class
new DM_Project_Post_Types;
Now in functions.php add the PHP file that you just worked on:
require_once('config/post-types.php');
You will be able to generate as many custom post types you want and control the aspect of each of them without repeating the code. You also endup with a clean functions.php file and it will be easier to read in the future.
You can use this approach on other customizations that you’re doing on the site, creating a separate PHP file and call them from inside functions.php.
You can find a similar article on how to create multiple Custom Taxonomies with the same approach.
