February 2020: Fewbricks2 is currently in beta and being tested in a cpl of live projects before the stable release.

Fewbricks2

Example code

Want to see some code right away? Start at Fields and continue from there.

Elevator pitch

Fewbricks…

• …is a framework allowing you to write code to create field groups and fields for the awesome WordPress plugin Advanced Custom Fields v5 Pro or ACF for short.
• …gives you the power to create reusable field collections which we have named Bricks. Check them out, they are pretty neat IMHO.
• …ultimately generates the same kind of arrays that are passed to ACFs acf_add_local_field_group() when you use “Generate PHP” on the ACF Tools screen. It even passes the generated arrays to that very function. So, sorry to disappoint, there’s no black magic in Fewbricks.
• …is available at GitHub where issues can be used to ask questions, report bugs and anything else discussed. Pull requests are welcome and will be dealt with when time allows.
• …is primarily developed by Björn Folbert, web developer at KAN in Malmö, Sweden.

Main concepts

Portability and re-usability of code

Almost all web sites have a couple of building blocks (modules or “bricks”) in common. This can, for example, be “Page hero”, “Plain text”, “Image with text to the right”, “Image with text to the left”, “Image”, “YouTube-video” and so on. Using a modular system which is completely built using code and split up into single responsibility files makes re-using field groups and fields much easier compared to when settings are stored in the database as ACF does out of the box. Yes, ACF does come with export functionality and ability to generate PHP code and JSON files but it is still, in my humble opinion, cumbersome to cherry-pick bricks for each project.

Re-usable field groups

Since, in Fewbricks, all ACF-fields are set up using code, we can reuse fields and even other bricks across multiple bricks. This means that if we need to have, for example, a link in multiple bricks and places, we can create a link brick once and then reuse that code all over the place. Now, imagine that the link has multiple settings like giving the administrator the ability to select a style and type (internal link, external link, mail, download etc.) every time a link is used. Having to set that up in multiple times in ACFs visual editor would be a lot of work and you know that the client will want to add new functionality to links all of a sudden. Using Fewbricks, all you have to do is change the code in one place. You can even use any of Fewbricks many functions for interacting with Bricks to set up the link brick to behave differently depending on where it is implemented.

Since development on Fewbricks started, the field “Clone” has been introduced in ACF. While this does solve some of the problems that Fewbricks also solves, Fewbricks aims to offer a lot more which you will see later on.

Extensibility

Since each Brick is a class, you can create a new Brick based on an existing Brick which adds new fields and/or its own output. Or you can add code to an existing Brick to allow anyone who is creating an instance of the class to modify the Brick by passing arguments.

Cleaner way to output HTML

You can implement one template file for each Brick, which makes figuring out where to edit the output of the brick a breeze. Even if the brick is used in multiple places and loops, the HTML can be edited in one place.

Code readability

Easier to see which fields belong to a Brick. Instead of having to switch between WordPress Admin and code to see what you named a specific field when you want to use it, you can have it all in one brick class file.

Flexibility

You decide how you want to write the code that creates fields, field groups and, if you want, bricks. You can create all fields and field groups in a single file and then use your preferred way of outputting the content. Or you can use OOP and create classes for bricks and field groups and then be able to have the classes be responsible for outputting the frontend code. It’s all up to you.