Altering the custom fields interface

[Ryan]

I've been Googling around and am having trouble finding an idiot proof tutorial on how to modify the custom fields interface in the WordPress admin panel. In a few days I need to add a custom field box which has a list of sub-pages from elsewhere on the site that the site admin can choose, but at the moment the only way I can do it is via the regular custom fields interface which is kinda awkward for the client since they'd need to manually punch in a page ID.

I found the following blog post about this sort of thing, but I found it a little confusing and am assuming there is a much simpler tutorial out there on the topic that I just haven't found:
http://sltaylor.co.uk/blog/control-y...custom-fields/

Do any of you know of any suitable tutorials? Or have a few tips on how to go about doing this?

[t31os]

Been having a dig around for you (google), i think this is probably the most straight-forward tutorial for adding a simple meta box..
farinspace.com/2010/04/how-to-create-custom-wordpress-meta-box/

You could just replace the textarea with a dropdown, which you could populate using something like wp_dropdown_pages(), and of course strip away the bits you don't need, i just found this particular example relatively easy to follow (although i had no issue following the one you linked to, hehe).

Hope that helps... :)

[sleary]

There's the Custom Field Templates plugin.

I have a tutorial on this in my book. I wasn't going to post that bit online, but... maybe. :)

[sleary]

Oh, I just found this tutorial, which includes custom fields. It's not bad.

[Ryan]

Been having a dig around for you (google), i think this is probably the most straight-forward tutorial for adding a simple meta box..
farinspace.com/2010/04/how-to-create-custom-wordpress-meta-box/

Awesome, thanks :) That's just what I was looking for!

Oh, I just found this tutorial, which includes custom fields. It's not bad.

That's custom post types, not custom fields unfortunately.

[sleary]

Look further down. It starts out with post types, but includes custom fields as well.

[Ryan]

Thanks, I see it now :)

I think I glanced at that and assumed it was just teaching how to utilize regular custom fields, not modifying what they looked like.