Creating and editing posts

A very common use case for ACF forms on the front end is to allow users to create and edit posts. Some examples of this include:

• User submitted blog posts
• Allowing users a single page to act as their profile
• Bespoke support ticket system where users can submit ticket posts
• A front end job board where users can submit job posts
• A front end directory where users can submit directory posts
• A real-estate listing site where users can submit property posts
• User reviews or products or services that are then displayed on the site

Advanced Forms Pro makes this very easy to do and with a comprehensive set of actions and filters available, you can customize the post creation and editing process to suit almost any scenario – the possibilties are endless.

Configuring a form to work with posts

To create or edit posts with a form, you need to enable post editing in the form's settings. Once you have created a form and assigned one or more field groups to it, go to the form's settings and enable post editing:

Once you have enabled post editing, you will see a new section appear under the toggle. This section allows you to choose which post type and post status posts will be created with.

Controlling the post title and content

You may also configure the post title and post content. This can be done either with a fixed (custom) value, the value of an ACF field attached to this form, or a combination of both.

Be mindful that if you haven't set this form in at least one field group's location rules, no fields will be available for selection here.

Controlling which submitted fields are stored on the affected post

By default, all ACF fields on the form will be saved against the affected post. If you have set up some fields specifically for core object properties such as the post title, post content, post status, etc, you may choose to prevent Advanced Forms from saving the values as ACF field metadata on the post. This can be done by disabling the Map all fields option and explicitly choosing the fields you want to save as ACF field metadata.

If you have fields that are only intended for front end submission and the field group is also used in the WordPress admin, you may prevent these fields from rendering in the WordPress admin. This can be done in the individual field settings panel within a field group edit screen.

Modifying the post data before post creation or update

Whilst Advanced Forms Pro has a small set of UI-based controls, you may control any property of the post object being created or edited by using the af/form/editing/post_data filter. This filter is passed the post data array, the form array, and the form render args array. For example;

add_filter( 'af/form/editing/post_data', function ( $post_data, $form, $args ) {
    // Restrict to a specific form
    if( $form['key'] !== 'form_62bd15508b9c9' ){
        return;
    }

    // Override post title
    $post_data['post_title'] = 'New post title!';

    // Conditionally control the post status
    if ( current_user_can( 'administrator' ) ) {
        $post_data['post_status'] = 'publish';
    } else {
        $post_data['post_status'] = 'draft';
    }

    // Set the excerpt using a submitted value
    $post_data['post_excerpt'] = esc_html( af_get_field('excerpt') );

    return $post_data;
}, 10, 3 );

For a full list of post data attributes, see the wp_insert_post() function docs.

For more specific examples leveraging the filter, see the Related docs section below.

How to access the affected post ID

When a post is created or updated, Advanced Forms will store the post ID on the submission object under the post attribute for further use. This means you can access the newly created (or updated) post ID in any actions or filters that run after the post has been affected – this allows you to do anything you like using PHP with the post. Consider the following example which demonstrates using the post ID in a custom submission handler:

add_action( 'af/form/submission', function ( $form, $fields, $args ) {
    // Restrict to a specific form
    if( $form['key'] !== 'form_62bd15508b9c9' ){
        return;
    }

    if ( isset( AF()->submission['post'] ) ) {
        $post_id = AF()->submission['post'];

        // Use the post ID here…
    }
}, 20, 3 ); // Note the priority of 20 here. Core post editing/creation actions run at priority 10.

There's no need to worry about field name conflicts either. Advanced Forms stores the submitted field values sensibly so that if you happen to also have a field with the name post, there won't be any conflicts.

Creating new posts

Creating new posts is the default behaviour when a form has post editing enabled. This means that you can put a form anywhere you need it and it will reliably serve as a post creation form. The main difference between creating and editing posts is that to edit a post, an advanced form needs to know which post to edit. This context is provided through the use of render arguments and without explicit instruction, Advanced Forms does not infer a post context. This provides a lot of flexibility. To use a form to edit an existing post, see Editing existing posts.

Running custom code after a post is created

After a post is created, the af/form/editing/post_created action is fired. You may use this action to run any custom functionality that is specific to new posts. For example;

add_action( 'af/form/editing/post_created', function ( $post, $form, $args ) {
    // Restrict to a specific form
    if( $form['key'] !== 'form_62bd15508b9c9' ){
        return;
    }

    $post_id = $post->ID;

    // Do something with the post ID here…

}, 10, 3 );

Editing existing posts

To edit an existing post, you must specify which post to target using the post form arg. Setting this arg gives Advanced Forms Pro context and indicates that the form is intended for editing an existing post. If the plugin can find the post, it will preload the values into the form for editing.

The post context can be passed to both the shortcode and the advanced_form() function. It can also be set if using the Advanced Form block in the block editor.

Editing the current post

If you wish to edit the current post, you can place a form on the single post screen and set the post arg to current.

When using the shortcode, this would look like:

[advanced_form form="form_62bd15508b9c9" post="current"]

When using the advanced_form() function, this would look like:

advanced_form( 'form_62bd15508b9c9', [ 'post' => 'current' ] );

When using the Advanced Form block, you can choose the Edit current post option in the block's settings under the Editing tab.

When set to current, Advanced Forms will make a call to WordPress' get_the_ID() function so this relies on WordPress having set up the global post object. If the form is not loading values on render, try moving the form inside the loop.

Editing a post by ID

If you know exactly which post you want to edit, you can set the post arg to the post ID. For example:

[advanced_form form="form_62bd15508b9c9" post="123"]

When using the advanced_form() function, this would look like:

advanced_form( 'form_62bd15508b9c9', [ 'post' => 123 ] );

When using the Advanced Form block, you can choose the Edit specific post option and choose the desired post in the block's settings under the Editing tab.

Editing a post by URL query parameter

You may also instruct the form to extract the post ID from the post URL query parameter. This is useful if you want to provide links to a page specifically for editing posts. To enable this behaviour, set the post arg to param.

For example:

[advanced_form form="form_62bd15508b9c9" post="param"]

When using the advanced_form() function, this would look like:

advanced_form( 'form_62bd15508b9c9', [ 'post' => 'param' ] );

When using the Advanced Form block, you can choose the Edit post from query parameter option in the block's settings under the Editing tab.

When set to param, Advanced Forms will look for a URL query parameter with the name post and use the value assigned to that parameter. e.g; https://example.com/edit-post/?post=123

Customizing the URL query parameter name

If you wish to use a different URL query parameter name, you may use the af/form/editing/query_param filter as follows:

add_filter( 'af/form/editing/query_param', function ( $param, $form, $args ) {
    // Restrict to a specific form
    if( $form['key'] !== 'form_62bd15508b9c9' ){
        return $param;
    }

    // Set the custom parameter name
    return 'my_custom_param';
}, 10, 3 );

Restrict editing to the post author only

By default, Advanced Forms allows any user to edit any post. You may restrict this behaviour so that only the post author may edit their own posts. To do this, enable the Only allow users to edit their own posts option in the form's Restrictions settings:

This will prevent everyone (admins included) from editing posts that they did not create. For more granular control, see Applying custom restrictions to a form.

Running custom code after a post is updated

After an existing post is updated, the af/form/editing/post_updated action is fired. You may use this action to run any custom functionality that is specific to new posts. For example;

add_action( 'af/form/editing/post_updated', function ( $post, $form, $args ) {
    // Restrict to a specific form
    if( $form['key'] !== 'form_62bd15508b9c9' ){
        return;
    }

    $post_id = $post->ID;

    // Do something with the post ID here…

}, 10, 3 );

Related docs

• How to add a post status select field to a form that creates posts
• How to dynamically change a success message when a post is updated
• How to change a users role on post creation
• How to redirect the form submission after post creation
• How to create multiple posts with a single form submission
• How to use URL parameters to switch between creating and editing posts
• How to assign taxonomy terms to posts
• How to customise the post author
• How to set the newly created user as author of a newly created post
• How to set the post excerpt when creating or editing a post
• How to prevent emails sending if form is updating a post
• How to remove emojis from created post titles