Adding Custom Meta Boxes to the WordPress Admin Interface

WordPress lets us add custom meta boxes to posts, pages and custom post types via the admin interface. WordPress also provides APIs to customize the default meta boxes.

In this tutorial, I will show you how to add new custom meta boxes, save custom meta data, validate meta data, retrieve custom meta data on the front end and also remove the default meta boxes.

What is a Custom Meta Box?

Custom meta boxes allow users to add additional information to posts, pages and custom post types, apart from the default set of information that WordPress takes using default meta boxes. Plugins and Themes can use custom meta boxes to take additional structured user input.

Custom meta boxes can also be added to the dashboard and attached to the admin interface. WordPress dashboard widgets are actually meta boxes.

Editor, Custom Fields, Featured Image, Categories, and Tags on a post, page or custom post page admin interface are default meta boxes. They are created by the WordPress core.

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by Narayan Prusty via SitePoint