Step 1: Planning
Written by the Divi Engine Documentation Team
Introduction
Follow this information to plan your WordPress Divi website built with Divi machine.
Divi Machine
Divi Machine is a WordPress Divi plugin that enables you to build unique and stylish websites. Building with Divi Machine should start with planning because planning will increase your chance of success. Below you will find an overview of the important foundational blocks of Divi Machine to help you plan (and therefore build) your website.
Custom Posts
Description
Custom posts are posts of a custom post type. A custom post type is a unique category of posts that is separate from other types. Custom posts equip you to take a WordPress website to the next level of complexity by creating posts grouped together independently.
Use
Divi Machine allows you to create as many post types as you need. What post types will you need for your website? As an example, let's say that you want to sell second-hand books and so you create two post types: Fiction and Non-Fiction. Now you will be able to add fictional books as posts to the Fiction post type and non-fictional books as posts to the Non-Fiction post type.
Note
You will create, in the Theme Builder, an archive page for each post type to display your posts (and other information) and one or more single post templates to display ACF (and other) information.
Categories & Tags
Description
Post type categories and tags are ways to categorise your posts even further.
Use
Inside each post type, you will have the ability to create categories and tags. What categories and tags will you need for your website? As an example, let's say that in the Fiction post type you would like to categorise fictional books even further into age groups. You could then create categories such as 0-1 years, 2-4 years, etc.
Note
You will create, in the Theme Builder, an archive page for categories and an archive page for tags. The archive page is categorical in nature. What this means is that when your user visits your archive page they will see all posts linked to that category or tag. You will not need to set up a special loop or define what posts should be shown.
Benefit
We suggest creating your custom post types, categories and tags in Divi Machine because there is greater compatibility with modules.
Custom Taxonomies
Description
A custom taxonomy is essentially a category. Divi Machine allows you to create as many custom taxonomies as you need. This way you are able to increase the categorisation of your posts.
Note
See Categories & Tags.
Benefit
See Categories & Tags.
ACF or Custom Fields
Description
Custom Fields are a way to add data (information) to your posts. What ACF fields will you need for your posts? As an example, let's say that your books have a title, author, summary and image. You will need to create one ACF field for the title, one for the author, one for summary and one for the image.
Note
Divi Machine works with ACF (Advanced Custom Fields) to create fields. While there is a PRO version for ACF, the free version works wonderfully. You will not create an archive page for ACF fields but will create a template in the Theme Builder for your posts that contain ACF data.
Benefit
ACF fields are a great way to add more information to your posts.
Conclusion
Hopefully, the above information has given you a good understanding of how Divi Machine works. In summary, you will need to create at least one post type, at least one post for that post type and at least one ACF field containing data for that post to get your website working.
More Support?
Please email us at [email protected] if you are unable to get Divi Machine working.