By Josh Lewis on Sunday, 09 March 2014
Posted in General Issues
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It would be awesome if custom fields could be grouped. My proposal is to create a custom field called "Field Group" or "Grouped Field". This would solve some issues such as "location" and would help organize related fields. Typically we like to see data in a single line to make reading easier. However there are special cases where similar data can be placed right along side with another field to keep things simpler. Here's a visual example of this:



If those fields were all spread out it would actually be confusing to the user. This can also help cases such as education and the location area. Here's another screen shot example:



How it works: The custom fields that are grouped would not literally depend on each other, but it does effect their display. To set a custom field within the group, the user would simply drag the field into the "grouped field". Drag and drop is already well integrated within ES making this much easier to accomplish. The admin can click the individual custom fields within the grouped field to make the usual modifications/options. When displaying on the profile/ advanced user search, it can display the fields in a DIV that uses the display property with a value of either inline or inline-block.

Here is a generalized HTML mark up of how it could be structured:

 <div class="es-grouped-field">
<select name="LeadTrad" i>
<option value="1300">5.3</option>
<option value="1400">5.4</option>
<option value="1500">5.5</option>
<option value="1600">5.6</option>
<option value="1800" selected="">5.7</option>
</select>

Distance: 5 Miles: <input type="checkbox" name="5">
10 Miles: <input type="checkbox" name="10">
15 Miles: <input type="checkbox" name="15">
</div>


The CSS code would be pretty simple:
.es-grouped-field input, .es-grouped-field select {display: inline-block;}

This should theoretically display the data in a single line.

I understand that not everyone wants "grouped data" on a single line, but still would like it grouped. To resolve this one could simply set the width of the "grouped field". Or there could be an option that sets the limit of custom fields per row. Now that's flexibility!

Finally this would help out the address situation. Countries, states, cities, ect could be grouped into a single field. This would allow a user to create their own custom address section with the exact order they want the fields to be in as well as fields to display. For example if I wanted to display "Country, State, City", I would be able to do so with grouped fields. There are so many possibilities with grouped fields which is why I really believe that EasySocial would benefit from this idea.
Interesting idea Josh. Not sure if we have the time to implement this in 1.2.0 but perhaps something that is worth considering in the future
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Sunday, 09 March 2014 13:38
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Thanks Mark. I assumed that it would not make it into ES 1.2.0, but hopefully for the future. It's a core feature that would help with custom field organization and provide for better display. It would also help reduce a cluttered look in some cases, make better use of space, and make it easier to find certain fields. Just had to give a speedy overview. In addition to this, we could use this method on the address field to reduce the number of options visible upon first look and increase it's flexibility! The flexibility increase is that each individual field could be clicked such as "Address 2" which would have the usual custom field options such as "display title, description, required, visible, ect". So rather than for the entire address area, it would be for the individual fields. The address part doesn't need to be changed, but it would be using the same field principles as the rest of ES which is a good thing.
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Sunday, 09 March 2014 13:54
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Yep, agreed. These are some of the cool improvements that could enhance the custom fields within EasySocial
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Sunday, 09 March 2014 14:10
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Here are two more common examples of grouped fields.



It would be silly to have them in a large single row.
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Monday, 10 March 2014 15:20
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Thanks for sharing Josh Appreciate it.
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Monday, 10 March 2014 22:34
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This is a must!

I was wondering how to create a "working experiences" custom fields which required to group multiple fields in one (company name, date range, title, description) and be replicated (by clicking a "add experiences" button...)

This would make it possible.
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Tuesday, 13 January 2015 13:55
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Hi Aikigi,

I am really sorry. I believe currently EasySocial unable to do this. I will consult with our developers regarding this and hopefully we can consider to include this in the future.

Please advise.
Thanks.
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Tuesday, 13 January 2015 16:58
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Hello,

I was looking for the ES 1.4 roadmap to see if some changes were going to happen with Custom fields, but I can't find the page anymore

Anyway, I was brainstorming about how to create the custom fields I need, and spending some time testing EasyBlog5 Alpha 2 (which is amazing!) just confirm what Josh has been proposing in this post:

1. Extend the actual drag and drop layout to allow to place multiple custom fields on the same line/row. (like the new EB5 composer with blocks )

2. Like Josh mention it, an option that let administrator decide how the fields should be display; One under the other or inline (If inline, how many rows).

Example: checkbox with 21 options to choose from. Display inline in 3 rows (=7 options per lines)


3. The other thing (and the most important for me) was to create "Custom fields containers" (or groups fields as called by Josh). A container would group multiple custom fields that are related and an option to add (just like the actual field “Multi Textbox”) a “+” or “Add” button (which administrator can decide the label).

With containers, it would become very easy to create complex custom fields such as "working experiences" which required to group multiple fields like company name, date range, Job title, description, link, etc and be replicated by clicking a "add another working experience" button…

Is there some changes plan in a near future for custom fields?

Thanks.
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Saturday, 18 April 2015 16:21
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Ho I found the page in your new blog post!
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Monday, 20 April 2015 02:11
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Hello Aikigi,

I am sorry for the delay of this reply.

Looks like you've found the easysocial roadmap page . Hope you find the answer that you were looking at there. For those who are still searching for the roadmap page, you can refer to this link http://stackideas.com/roadmap/easysocial

Thanks again guys for the heads up and the amazing feedback from you guys!
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Monday, 20 April 2015 18:34
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