Fields & Sections

Fields

Fields are the essence of ACF. They are called "Metafields" and are stored as information tied directly to your own individual objects such as your products, collections, pages, etc.

You can use fields to store information, media, references, etc. that are relevant to help you better describe your objects in your storefront. Also, you can use it as an admin tool to store important backend information related to your exact business processes - the use cases can be whatever you want them to be essentially.

Adding a new field definition

Before being able to add any values to a field, it first needs to be defined with a name, field type, and any relevant settings related to the chosen type.

1. Click on "Add field" from the top menu bar

2. Give your field a relevant label. The field's name will automatically be generated based on this, but you can also edit that if you want.

3. On the next page you can choose the field's data type:

You can read more about the various field types here.

4. On the last page you can select various settings related to your chosen field type.

5. Click on "Done" and then be sure to hit the "Save" button in the right sidebar.

Your field is then ready to use in the editor.

If you are looking for inspiration for what you can do with your custom fields, try having a look at our various field types. If you have a certain feature in mind, and you are unsure how to set up your fields in order to achieve it, reach out to us. We would be happy to help you figure out the optimal solution for you.

Sections

Sections are used for two purposes:

1. To visually and logically group fields in the editor and to control the section's fields when the section is defined as repeatable
2. To group fields for the purpose of creating a custom layout per individual object (e.g. a page or a product)

Sections are not custom fields (Metafields) in their own right but rather control elements for the value and layout editor respectively. If you need to loop over the contained fields, please see this article.

Adding a new section

To add a new section you can click on the "Add section here" on a field definition to add a section below the field. If you do not have any fields for the scope, the "Add section" button will also be available in the top menu bar.

You can prefix a section's title with a "-" (dash) if you need the section to appear visually as a "sub-section" of another section in the editor