@geoffdusome/acf-meta-builder

A package that contains a gulp task to create ACF json files by reading your project files and parsing out specific function calls.

Installation

In order to use this gulp task, please include @geoffdusome/acf-meta-builder as a dependency in your package.json file. Otherwise, the package can be installed by running npm i @geoffdusome/acf-meta-builder on your command line.

Usage

1. Require the package: const metaBuilder = require('@geoffdusome/acf-meta-builder');
2. Create the task:

gulp.task('buildMeta', function( done ) {
	metaBuilder.createMeta(['functions.php', 'header.php', 'footer.php'])
		.then(function(result) {
			console.log(result);
			done();
		}, function(err) {
			console.log(err);
			done();
		});
});

3. Watch files for changes: gulp.watch(['*.php'], gulp.series('buildMeta'));

createMeta( excludes )

The createMeta task will look for PHP function calls containing acfmb as the function name. acfmb accepts 4 total parameters, with the first 3 being required and the last optional (please see function call below for more information). The task will loop through all files that contain a mention of the acfmb function, and then parses out all instances of the acfmb function separately to create a JSON array, which is then written to a JSON file.

Please note that the "location" of the meta is based off of the file name. I have set conventions for file names that allow me to point the meta to the right place, so if these conventions are not followed, you will have issues.

page.php: page_template = default
page-home.php: page_template = page-home.php
post-template-blog-layout.php: post_template = post-template-blog-layout.php
{post-type}/views.php: post_type = {post-type}
single.php: post_type = post
archive.php: post_type = post
single-{post-type}.php: post_type = {post-type}
archive-{post-type}.php: post_type = {post-type}
option-pages/{option-page-name}.php: options_page = {option-page-name} blocks/{block-name}.php: block = acf/{block-name}

The builder does respect multi-level meta, it just involved a more complex function call, please see below.

acfmb('[meta type]', '[meta field name]', '[meta field group]', '[extra fields]');

The acfmb function has the follow parameters:

• meta type: The type of meta (works with all ACF meta types, found here)
• meta field name: The name of the field (ie. "Hero Headline"). The field name will be automatically slugified for use in ACF.
• meta field ground: The goup of the field (ie. "Hero"). The group name will be automatically slugified for use in ACF.
• [optional] extra fields: A JSON string containing the extra options you want to use for the field (ie. '{"placeholder", "Hero Headline Text", "maxlength": "50"}'). You can find more information regarding the options available here.

Simple Example

<?php acfmb('text', 'Hero Headline', 'Hero'); ?>

Complex Example

With the builder, there is never any need to create a key for your fields, all keys are generated on save. You can continually nest repeaters and etc with as many options as you want with this method.

<?php acfmb('repeater', 'Years', 'Calendar', '{"layout": "block", "sub_fields": [{"type": "text", "name": "year", "label": "Year"}, {"type": "repeater", "name": "months", "label": "Months", "layout": "block", "sub_fields": [{"type": "text", "name": "month", "label": "Month"}]}]}'); ?>