Custom Websites (WordPress) — How we combined ACF Pro with an extension to reduce web development time.

Creating tailor-made websites requires a considerable investment of time. Indeed, in the case of a personalized website, you have to do almost everything from scratch. This can significantly affect development time. This development approach is preferred by certain companies which have specifications that are out of the ordinary. The issue of development time was a major issue during Prositeweb 's two-year loan. Despite the efforts, it seemed almost impossible to show a client that their project could take longer than those of other companies. This is the reason why we embarked on a process of reflection and testing which enabled us to considerably reduce the development time of our web projects. We tell you how.

Some Benefits of Custom Website Development

You will certainly ask yourself the question of why create a custom website if you can easily find the tools or features. Although collecting pre-existing tools can help to be quick, tailor-made solutions can have their benefits. We list some advantages below.

The security of your web solution

A theme that you find on the market may have features that use external resources. And, indirectly, these resources can constitute security holes. For example, several security vulnerabilities reported on the WordPress website originate from extensions. Creating a custom solution can consist of creating modules that fit your needs. Although this approach does not exclude vulnerabilities, you will internally have more control over the management of your web resources.

Performance management

The performance of your website is a very important aspect to better position yourself. When you have generic solutions, they also come with features that are less useful for your organization. Several companies option for custom development to better manage their resource and therefore ergonomics.

You do not find the solution adapted to your needs

For many organizations, the solutions on the market do not always meet their needs. Indeed, you can have an innovative solution that is not located in the extension bank. So, creating a custom solution can help you bring your project to fruition.

It is very costly in the long term to opt for a solution with membership.

Several applications that you will find on the net are in the form of a subscription. It seems cheaper immediately; but quite demanding in the medium or long term. These are the cases of delivery or remote order options which apparently claimed ready 30% profits at the restaurant during the COVID-19 pandemic. Ultimately, investing in a custom solution comes down to each company's vision. We can help you assess your project to give you all the options.

How we combined ACF Pro with an extension to reduce web development time?

Reducing the development time was very important to continue to offer our customers a quality service while allowing them to reduce the cost of their service. For this, we have opted for, among other things:

• Development of modules similar to almost all web projects
• Creating an ACF Pro extension
• A deep learning web design tool

The creation of a toolbox for our web projects

A website is an assembly of small features that generally look alike (from the backend point of view). Indeed, to send a message, for example, the process is almost similar in all websites. We have therefore exploited this opportunity to create small modules that we recombine during the development of projects. This allows us to avoid redoing the programming of the same codes on different projects. What changes in this case during the development of a site is the visual developed according to the customer's needs. If you work with us to design your bespoke website, you won't risk paying the same amount we charged when we started. On the contrary, your project will have all the components of old customers include new innovative solutions.

The creation of custom extensions (Extension of ACF Pro) for the development of custom websites

In web or application development, an extension is an application that is sometimes independent of your theme. This application allows you to perform different tasks. For example, you can use an extension to add a contact form to your website. Or, to easily put Google Analytics or Google Ads code in the header of your site. In the case of designing websites on WordPress, we have invested a lot of time developing an extension that uses ACF features to easily create a WordPress theme. Our extension automates a good part of the process. For example, after installing the extension and first configuration, the extension will take care of retrieving blocks from a location in your theme. If you want to know more about the extension, you can click on this link to contact us .

What is ACF?

ACF Pro (Advanced Custom Field) is a very popular extension on WordPress. Indeed, this tool is particularly known for facilitating the creation of custom fields. Because, it offers options that developers can use to easily add dynamic fields to a website. For example, if you have an event website, you want to create a field group to add a photo gallery, it's easy with ACF. It will suffice in this case

• to go to the group creation option,
• add a gallery field
• associate it with the page or category creation form
• use it to add photos directly when creating or modifying pages.

Then, with a small modification of your code , you will be able to display the photos you have selected on your website. ACF offers several features that you can use in your web project. With a little curiosity and a journey through the documentation, you can stand out in your web development process. For an experienced WordPress developer, the ACF could be more than enough to develop several components for a website. If you want to use the Advanced Custom Field in your projects, you can go to the wordpress.org website to download. Below is an example of code for displaying a photo gallery

What more does ACF PRO bring to the creation of tailor-made websites?

If you visit the official ACF website , you will see some major differences between the free version and the PRO version. As examples:

• You can create repeating fields. If, for example, you want to create a price table, it may be interesting to program an option allowing you to easily add a repeating list. In this case, this option is very useful.
• The creation of blocks. To facilitate the creation of custom websites, you can create blocks that users will call in the Gutenberg editor. This option is really made easy with the ACF Pro.
• Flexible content. The flexible content option allows you to simply manage the interface for creating your data.
• The creation of the option page. When creating a WordPress theme or plugin, you may need the option page to make it easier to set up your feature.

We can notice that thanks to this extension, you have several tools to easily create your website.

What more does our extension (ACF Prolongé de Prositeweb) bring?

We have particularly exploited the block creation functionality to facilitate the development of WordPress themes for custom websites. Indeed, by combining the ACF Pro with our WordPress extension , we generally do not need other extensions for the creation of websites.

What is Prositeweb's Prolonged ACF?

Our module makes it possible, among other things, to simplify the stages of designing a website with the ACF. Indeed, to configure and make a theme with the ACF, you must make a configuration, create the blocks or parts of your website. Then add the variables in the parts you want to make dynamic. All these steps seem complex if you lack PHP development skill. Even if you are experienced, these steps are repetitive in all web projects. In our module, we have made all the configurations you will need to use the ACF. To know:

• Create functions important to initial configuration
• Make the block design process easy
• Allow developers to create the pages without having to worry about the complexity of PHP.

After several tests and validation, converting an HTML theme into a WordPress theme has become child's play.

How to use Prositeweb's Prolonged ACF to create custom websites?

Using Prositeweb's extended ACF will consist of:

• First, to Cut its HTML design into parts or blocks of PHP code.
• Then put these blocks in a folder of your current theme.
• Subsequently, import the JSON file of the field group variables. (To be supplied with the extension)
• Finally, specify the folder name of your blocks in the extension configuration.

The extension will take care of locating the location of your blocks and creating data (in the database) that you can use in your Gutenberg editor. It is important to note when, at first, the will have static data (the text in the code). It will then be necessary to use the syntax of the ACF with these functionalities to make the texts dynamic.

Setup and Steps

Once you have installed the extension, you need to follow these steps:

• Go to Appearance tab ⇒ Extend ACF Prositeweb
• Next, enter the folder name of your PHP blocks
• You can also enter some basic information such as phone number, address, links (Only if you intend to use them in your project).

If you have sectioned and added your blocks in your current theme folder, the extension will take care of creating the elements for your pages. You will see these elements via the Prositeweb Block tab.

How to make your php blocks dynamic?

To make your PHP blocks dynamic, all you have to do is import the JSON file that you will get with the extension. This file contains the configuration of the field groups which will be automatically assigned to the blocks you created above. To import,

• Go to ACF
• Next, Tools
• Selected the JSON file to your right and imported

For the following, you will use the syntax of the ACF and PHP to add the data. Below is an example of what a block file might look like with ACF and PHP variables:

How has our approach contributed to reducing the development time of bespoke websites?

From the beginning, we talked about reducing web development time. Indeed, by creating an extension that we combined with the ACF, we limited the development of websites to the creation of blocks and the addition of variables. This approach is very beneficial and makes it easy to delegate the first parts of the project. It is obviously true that several other aspects are helpful in the process. however, including them becomes relatively easy.

Some websites that developed with our extension

We currently have more than 10 websites and applications that use Prositeweb's extended ACF. And, we also use it to greatly improve our clients' websites. Below are some examples.

Car garage

Garage Auto is a multi-user website that we developed with WordPress. This website uses ACF Pro and our extension for nearly all functionality. Indeed, to carry out this project, we used an HTML design that we then converted into a WordPress theme.

Enoweek

Enoweek is the directory of Canadian businesses. It is also a site that we have developed with the ACF PRO and our extension.

Other web projects

We have also created websites such as:

• CameroonBiz
• Innovation in events
• White Definition

You will find the list in our achievements page .

Conclusion on the creation of tailor-made websites

With the approach that we have adapted and that we have been using for a few months. There is no longer a big difference between creating a custom website and choosing a theme on the market. In addition, your website will have very few extensions. If you want to learn more about Prositeweb or create a custom website for your business, contact us.