I believe what you’re referring to is called “Post Types”. By default, WordPress has a complete post types you’re already familiar with – post ( news / blog ), page ( Pages ), attachment ( Media ), revision ( Page / Post Revisions ). You can read up on the full list of built in post types on The Codex – Post Types.
If you want to register a new Custom Post Type ( CPT ) you can do pretty easily with some PHP knowledge. Let’s go through and create our own post type called “Products”.
Step One – Connect to FTP – you do not want to do this using Appearance -> Editor.
Step Two – Locate your theme, if you’re using a child theme open that up and locate the functions.php file. Open the file in Notepad++ or your editor of choice.
Step Three – Register Your Post Type
Toward the top of your functions.php file we’re going to hook into WordPress init and use a built-in WordPress function cleverly called: register_post_type. I highly suggest you read these codex links as I will not explain each point but instead give a brief description.
/** Create Post Type **/
function cpt_init() {
// Products Custom Post Type
register_post_type( 'cpt_products', array( // Internal name `cpt_products` - this is what we test against in queries
'labels' => array( // An array of Administrative labels
'name' => __( 'Products' ),
'singular_name' => __( 'Product' ),
'all_items' => __( 'View Products' ),
'add_new' => __( 'New Product' ),
'add_new_item' => __( 'New Product' ),
'edit_item' => __( 'Edit Product' ),
'view_item' => __( 'View Product' ),
'search_items' => __( 'Search Products' ),
'no_found' => __( 'No Products Found' ),
'not_found_in_trash' => __( 'No Products in Trash' )
),
'public' => true, // Whether it will be publically available or only in the admin panel
'publicly_queryable'=> true, // " "
'show_ui' => true, // Whether we want this post type to show up in the admin panel
'show_in_nav_menus' => false, // If we want Products to show up in the `Appearance -> Menu`
'capability_type' => 'page', // Mostly used for user capability
'hierarchical' => false, // If you will allow products to have child products / assigned a parent
'rewrite' => array( 'slug' => 'product', 'with_front' => false ), // This is going to be what the single post will be located at `/product/product-name/`
'menu_icon' => 'dashicons-cart', // https://developer.wordpress.org/resource/dashicons/#welcome-widgets-menus
'menu_position' => 5, // Where you want it to show up in the admin panel
'supports' => array( 'title', 'editor', 'page-attributes', 'revisions' ) // What is actually shown when a new product is added - admin panel
) );
}
add_action( 'init', 'cpt_init' );
Step Four – Upload functions.php – an important note here is to also flush permalinks which is as easy as going to Settings -> Permalinks and click “Save” button at the bottom of the page.
Similar to creating a post type, if you want to create Categories ( similar to Post Categories ) you can do so using the register_taxonomy function. Follow the steps as above until Step 3.
Step 3 – Register Taxonomy
The first two parameters are important to link the taxonomy to the post type. The next important part is the hierarchical parameter – this will be the difference between post_tags ( false ) and categories ( true ). We will make this taxonomy hierarchical which is similar to post categories.
/** Add Custom Taxonomy **/
function tax_init() {
// Product Categories
register_taxonomy(
'tax_products', // Taxonomy slug
'cpt_products', // What post type we're assigning the taxonomy to.
array( // Array of Arguments
'labels' => array( // User Friendly Labels
'name' => __( 'Product Categories' ),
'singular_name' => __( 'Product Category' ),
'search_items' => __( 'Search Product Categories' ),
'all_items' => __( 'All Product Categories' ),
'parent_item' => __( 'Parent Product Category' ),
'parent_item_colon' => __( 'Parent Product Category:' ),
'edit_item' => __( 'Edit Product Category' ),
'update_item' => __( 'Update Product Category' ),
'add_new_item' => __( 'Add New Product Category' ),
'new_item_name' => __( 'New Product Category' ),
'menu_name' => __( 'Product Categories' )
),
'public' => true, // Whether it will be public or only used in the admin panel
'hierarchical' => true, // The differnce between *Tags* and *Categories*
'show_in_nav_menus' => true, // To show up in `Appearance -> Menus` or not.
'show_admin_column' => true, // If we want an column next to the title when listing our products
'rewrite' => array( 'slug' => 'products/category', 'with_front' => false, 'hierarchical' => true ) // Similar to post type, where to find the categories `products/category/category-1/`
)
);
}
add_action( 'init', 'tax_init');