Back in 2017, Joomla introduced Joomla custom fields with the release of Joomla 3.7. Most of the Joomla fans are aware of it, but I guess most of us don't know the real power of Joomla Custom Fields.
The Joomla Custom Fields helps you to extend the features of Articles, User Profiles, and Contact as right now. Custom fields are only available on these three components. So in short, you can say that Joomla custom fields can take your Joomla project to the next level without using the third-party extensions.
But right now Joomla is offering you only 16 types of the Joomla Custom fields, and all are these basics fields.
Let’s check out the available custom fields in Joomla.
- Calendar Field
- Checkboxes Field
- Color Field
- Editor Field
- Integer Field
- List Field
- List of Images Field
- Media Field
- Radio Field
- Repeatable Field
- SQL Field
- Text Field
- Textarea Field
- Url Field
- User Field
- User Group Field
But these are not enough for a project you are working on. You need some advanced fields as well.
So, in this article, I am going to discuss the ten advanced Joomla custom fields you need the most for your project.
Again it will depend upon the nature and requirement of the project.
List of Additional Custom Fields You Might Need
File Upload
As I mentioned that Custom Field would extend the functionality of Joomla. And with the help of File Upload Custom field, you can add a feature to upload any attachment such as image, PDF, a zip file or any other to your article and provide a direct download link to your user. Apart from the article, you can add a file upload field in the registration form and allow your users to upload a profile pic to their profile.
File Upload field can be added to a contact form so the user can upload any file. Don’t worry, and you can also control the type and size of the file.
Module
Want to include a Joomla Module to you article? You can add easily with the help of Module loader custom field. It enables you to choose a module out of a list which contains all of the modules of your Joomla website.
To know more about how to add, you can check the detailed documentation on the official website.
Articles Field
Articles Field is a plugin by Regular Labs, and it helps you to extend the capability of Joomla custom fields, enabling you to display a list of articles. In native List custom field, you can only show the list as a plain text. This can’t be hyperlinked to any article.
But with the help of Articles Field plugin, you can choose from a list of articles (based on the selected filters), allowing you to connect articles directly.
To know more about its use case and how to use it, navigate to its official website
Related Articles Custom Field
Related articles help you to increase the engagement and readership on your website. With the help of Related Articles Custom Field, you can easily display the links to articles which are strictly related to that article.
Visit the official website to know more and download the Related Articles Custom Field.
PHP
Sometimes you need to run PHP code in Joomla articles, but you can’t do it with default custom fields. You need to download Advanced Custom Fields Joomla extension which offers you PHP custom field. It allows you to run any PHP code when you view an article.
It also allows you to block some PHP functions. You can list down all the PHP functions which you don’t want to execute. So if it finds any blocked function in the PHP code, it will not run the whole block of code.
WhatsApp Click to Chat
Right now WhatsApp is not only used for personal chat but is it widely used in businesses as well. People provide product support on WhatsApp and do many things with WhatsApp to increase sales. So if you want to create a link which can navigate users to send you a message without saving your number in their list, this custom field is for you. To more about its usage, check out the documentation page.
Bing Maps
In June 2018, Google Maps was replaced by the new Google Maps Platform for business and developers. Now it is a pay-as-you-go billing model. So Bing Map is a great free alternative to Google Maps.
With the help of Bing Maps Custom Field, you can easily display Bing Map on your frontend by just entering the latitude and longitude of a location. Know more about it here.
Progress Bar
I will not say it is a must-have or essential, but sometimes to gain the trust of your visitors, you want to show some progress bars on your websites.
Progress Bar custom field allows you to add a progress bar on your article by just adding the percentage. You can change the look and feel of the progress bar by adding animation, strips, shadow, border-radius etc. Check out the documentation page to know more.
Download Button
If you are offering something to download, the Download Button field is going to help you. It allows you to add a button on the frontend and when a user clicks on the button, it forces the browser to download the file directly instead of navigating them to file page. It also allows you to include or exclude specific file types. This custom field is also available in Advanced Custom Field Joomla extension.
Fields - Location
The Fields - Location plugin offers a Google map location selector as a custom field type. Using this plugin, you can add any number of map fields to your articles, categories, contacts and users.
Custom Fields - Youtube
If you want to add YouTube videos to your content, you can use this Custom field. It allows you to create new fields for 'Youtube videos' in any extension where Joomla custom fields are supported. Check out the extension on JED page.
