tmf / wp-metabox-helper

A service that facilitates the creation of metaboxes for post meta fields.

WordPress Metabox Helper Service

A Pimple service based on the Hookable Service Provider that facilitates the creation of metaboxes for post meta fields. The items in a metabox representing post meta fields are compatible with WordPress revisions and autosaves. This service can be registered in a pimple container and be used in WordPress themes or plugins.

This metabox helper service comes with the following types of items out of the box:

• Text inputs
• Dropdown fields (implemented with selectize)
• Textareas
• TinyMCE Editors

Usage

This service is installable via Composer and relies on it's class autoloading mechanism. You can package the vendor directory with you theme or plugin, with your WordPress installation or with a setup of your choosing.

1. Create a composer project for your plugin or theme:

   cd your-plugin-directory
   # install composer phar
   curl -sS https://getcomposer.org/installer | php
   # create a basic composer.json
   ./composer.phar init

2. Add the metabox helper service as a dependency in your composer.json

   ./composer.phar require tmf/wp-metabox-helper ~0.1

3. Create a pimple container and register the metabox helper service

   // load the vendors via composer autoload
   if (file_exists( __DIR__ . '/vendor/autoload.php')) {
       require_once __DIR__ . '/vendor/autoload.php';
   }
   
   use Tmf\Wordpress\Service\Metabox\MetaboxServiceProvider,
       Tmf\Wordpress\Service\Metabox\Metabox,
       Tmf\Wordpress\Service\Metabox\Item\InputItem,
       Tmf\Wordpress\Service\Metabox\Item\DropdownItem,
       Tmf\Wordpress\Service\Metabox\Item\EditorItem;
   
   // create the service container
   $services = new Pimple\Container();
   
   // register the metabox helper with this service provider. the service is registered with the 'metaboxes' key
   $services->register(new MetaboxServiceProvider());

4. Add a metabox and some metabox items representing post meta values

   add_action('admin_init', function () use ($services) {
       // create a metabox for 'post' post types
       $services['metaboxes']['foo'] = new Metabox('Foo', ['post'], 'normal', 'high');
       
       // add item: the key is the post meta key
       $services['metaboxes']['foo']['text'] = new InputItem(['label' => 'Metatext', 'description' => 'Some description']);
       $services['metaboxes']['foo']['dropdown'] = new DropdownItem([['label' => 'Foo', 'value'=>'foo'], ['label' => 'Bar', 'value'=>'bar']]);
       $services['metaboxes']['foo']['editor'] = new EditorItem();
   });

Extend

If you want to use your own metabox items, your item must implement the Tmf\Wordpress\Service\Metabox\Item\MetaboxItemInterface interface. You can, however, extend any of the available items or the Tmf\Wordpress\Service\Metabox\Item\TwigTemplateItemRenderer. If you want to define your own Twig templates for the item rendering, add a Twig loader to the Twig Chain:

add_action('add_meta_boxes', function() use ($services) {
    $this->getContainer()->extend('metaboxes.twig.loader', function($loader, $services){
        /** @var Twig_Loader_Chain $loader */
        $loader->addLoader(new Twig_Loader_Filesystem(get_stylesheet_directory() . '/templates/items'));
        return $loader;
    });
}, 95); // additional twig loaders should be registered between priority 90 and 100