What Are WordPress Custom Post Types And How Would I Use It?

In his State of the Word address at WordCamp SF 2010, Matt spoke briefly about the new Custom Post Types in WordPress 3.0 and distributed the URL to a post by Konstantin (see below) that describes this new feature in vivid detail and gives you practical application for this feature.

What Are Custom Post Types?

If you have used Tumblr, you would be able to relate to this more easily. In tumblr, there are different post types by default in the dashboard.

Tumblr Dashboard with Custom Post Types.

So when you click the Text icon in tumblr, your post menu will show boxes and menu options specific to a text post, whereas if you click the Photo icon, the post menu will change, and show you menu options specific to a photo post, like a browse button to upload the photo, a click-through URL box for the photo and a caption for the photo.

Now, in WordPress 3.0, you will have the ability to create such Custom Post Types similar to Tumblr. Of course it will require some (not too much) PHP coding, so if you are a site owner or designer who needs this feature, but do not want to write code, ask your theme developer about this feature!

Here is Konstantin’s details blog post discussing the new custom post type features, practical applications, and how to code it into your theme.