noellarkin
Senior Member
- Mar 14, 2021
- 1,006
- 1,492
A few things got me started using Pods (a free wordpress plugin).
1. Learning about entities and different schema for entities in web design. In simple terms, this meant an object-oriented approach to websites (and nesting keywords inside entities).
2. an NFG video where the speaker mentioned hyperlinking across entities (objects) instead of just keywords within a site
How does WP Pods fit into this?
The way I used to make websites was using two objects: posts (objects that have an RSS feed and are non-hierarchical) and pages (objects that don't have an RSS feed and are hierarchical).
With pods, I create Objects, give the objects properties, and assign templates to display them under different circumstances (a clear analogy to object-oriented programming).
So let's say I'm building a website for a construction company. I first list out the types of objects relevant to the company.
Clients
Projects
Vendors
etc
Then I set up the object properties and relationships between objects:
Properties:
Clients -> name, projects
Projects -> name, client, location, year of construction, budget
Relationships:
Client to Project (one to many)
Project to Client (one to one)
(all of these are set up in the Pods framework..in a sense you can call it a relational database manager with display templates)
Now I set up the associated display templates:
Clients pod template - for displaying list of clients, no RSS feed
Project pod template - for displaying list of projects, RSS feed
For each template I can display the object properties programmatically, ie
{@client_name}, {@project_name} etc, define it once in the template. I can also display relationships in templates, using {@project_name.client} and use <a href> to create templated hyperlinks between related objects.
End result: for websites that have object relationships (a company portfolio, for example) site creation time goes down to less than a day sometimes, especially considering I can bulk import object data from csv files. I can assign RSS feeds to any object type, I can make an object work as a post, a page, or just a backend admin accessible table (great for contact forms).
Pods isn't the only plugin that does all this, there's also Toolset IIRC, as well as something called Metabox, but Pods is the only one that has the entire featureset available for free.
The Cons? The documentation is terrible, and you need some basic php knowledge for the more advanced options. Personally, I've only scratched the surface with Pods, there are a lot of options I haven't used yet (like Pod Pages).
Any other Pods users here? What's your primary use case? I use it primarily to set up company websites for clients that are in niches which have very specific object relationships and hierarchies (like companies in construction, engineering, architecture). I haven't used it to make general purpose blogs or news sites.
1. Learning about entities and different schema for entities in web design. In simple terms, this meant an object-oriented approach to websites (and nesting keywords inside entities).
2. an NFG video where the speaker mentioned hyperlinking across entities (objects) instead of just keywords within a site
How does WP Pods fit into this?
The way I used to make websites was using two objects: posts (objects that have an RSS feed and are non-hierarchical) and pages (objects that don't have an RSS feed and are hierarchical).
With pods, I create Objects, give the objects properties, and assign templates to display them under different circumstances (a clear analogy to object-oriented programming).
So let's say I'm building a website for a construction company. I first list out the types of objects relevant to the company.
Clients
Projects
Vendors
etc
Then I set up the object properties and relationships between objects:
Properties:
Clients -> name, projects
Projects -> name, client, location, year of construction, budget
Relationships:
Client to Project (one to many)
Project to Client (one to one)
(all of these are set up in the Pods framework..in a sense you can call it a relational database manager with display templates)
Now I set up the associated display templates:
Clients pod template - for displaying list of clients, no RSS feed
Project pod template - for displaying list of projects, RSS feed
For each template I can display the object properties programmatically, ie
{@client_name}, {@project_name} etc, define it once in the template. I can also display relationships in templates, using {@project_name.client} and use <a href> to create templated hyperlinks between related objects.
End result: for websites that have object relationships (a company portfolio, for example) site creation time goes down to less than a day sometimes, especially considering I can bulk import object data from csv files. I can assign RSS feeds to any object type, I can make an object work as a post, a page, or just a backend admin accessible table (great for contact forms).
Pods isn't the only plugin that does all this, there's also Toolset IIRC, as well as something called Metabox, but Pods is the only one that has the entire featureset available for free.
The Cons? The documentation is terrible, and you need some basic php knowledge for the more advanced options. Personally, I've only scratched the surface with Pods, there are a lot of options I haven't used yet (like Pod Pages).
Any other Pods users here? What's your primary use case? I use it primarily to set up company websites for clients that are in niches which have very specific object relationships and hierarchies (like companies in construction, engineering, architecture). I haven't used it to make general purpose blogs or news sites.