Feature Posts from a Custom Post Type

Showit is happy to announce we have added support for displaying WordPress custom post types within Posts View Lookup canvases for our Advanced Blog users.

If you know what custom post types are, you are likely excited for this news. If you do not know, they are a way to extend WordPress with custom content, turning your blog into a bespoke content management system (CMS).

Showit has always supported custom post types display through standard or custom archive and single post blog templates. But you'll find this new option available in a Posts View Lookup canvas which is typically used to feature a set of posts on another page such as a Wordpress homepage.

You will find custom post types underneath the existing post lookup structure in the design app. From here you can specify the custom post type slug to load, as well as refining the posts by category, tag, and taxonomy.

As an example, let's say you run the premier fan site for the movie Xanadu, a film about magic and roller skating and the magic of roller skating. There is lots of singing and dancing for some reason. I think Olympus has something to do with it. If you wanted to have information for each actor that appears in this cinematic masterpiece you could define a custom post type for that data. Then you could add posts for Olivia Newton-John, Gene Kelley, and Michael Beck (who I only know from The Warriors, which would make for another great fan site). With those filled in, you can display the custom post type in their own canvas and dazzle your visitors with all kinds of information they never knew. Incredibly niche information about Xanadu and the people who starred in it.

If my first example doesn't quite connect, how about the idea of creating a separate set of Podcast episodes under their own post type of "Podcast"? Yes, you can do that and then you can use this new feature to display a few podcast posts on your homepage.

We here at Showit are excited to see what you create with custom post types, though I am concerned I am going to get flooded with pages about Xanadu, which is simply a peril of the job and one I willingly accept. I have to believe we are magic. Nothing can stand in our way.