How to Show the Featured Restaurants - P4 - Using MB Views

In the previous posts, we know how to show the featured restaurants using page builders. However, what if you don’t use any page builder, how can you do it? The answer is using MB Views. In today’s practice, let’s see how to display the featured restaurants using Meta Box only with the help of MB Views.

Table of Contents hide

1. Video Version
2. Before Getting Started
3. Create a Custom Post Type
4. Create Custom Fields
5. Create a Template for the Section
6. Style the Section
7. Last Words

This is a section on the homepage that I created for example to show the featured restaurants:

The example of the created section

This homepage is built by Gutenberg and there is a section to show the featured restaurants which are chosen manually in the backend.

Video Version

Watch this video on YouTube

Before Getting Started

Each restaurant is a post of a custom post type. Besides the basic information which is the title, featured image of the post, the restaurant’s extra information is saved in custom fields. So, we need the Meta Box plugin to have a framework to create custom post types and custom fields.

We’ll also need some of Meta Box extensions to have advanced features:

MB Custom Post Type & Custom Taxonomies: to create custom post types;
Meta Box Builder: to have a UI on the backend to create custom fields easily;
MB Views: to create the template for the featured restaurants section;
MB Admin Columns (optional): to show the custom fields as an admin column.

You can install these extensions individually or use Meta Box AIO to have all of them.

Create a Custom Post Type

Go to Meta Box > Post Types to create a new post type for the restaurants.

Create a custom post type

After publishing, you’ll see your newly created post type on the menu.

Newly created post type appear in the menu dashboard

Let’s create custom fields.

Create Custom Fields

Go to Meta Box > Custom Fields to create a new field group.

Create custom fields

Here are all the fields that I created.

Created fields

Besides some normal fields for typical information, I create a Switch field to choose whether to feature the restaurant or not.

Create a Switch field

Turning on the switch button means that the restaurant will be displayed in the section and vice versa.

Turn on the switch button

I’ll also show the values of this field in the admin column to see whether the restaurant is featured or not by ticking this box. This setting is available only when you have the MB Admin Columns.

Tick to choose Show as admin column

And this is how it displays on the admin dashboard.

The fields will display like this

After creating all the fields, move to the Settings tab, choose Location as Post Type and select Restaurant to apply them to that post type.

Set location for the created fields

Then, you’ll see all the newly created custom fields in the post editor. The switch field is also displayed. You can turn on or turn off the button to choose to feature the restaurant or not. Just fill in the information for the restaurant.

All the newly created custom fields in the post editor

Create a Template for the Section

Go to Meta Box > Views > Add New to create a new template that will be used to the section.

Create a template for the section

In the Template tab, add some code to display the featured restaurants:

Add some code

<pre>{% set args = { post_type: 'restaurant', posts_per_page: -1 } %}
{% set posts = mb.get_posts( args ) %}
{% for post in posts %}
{% endfor %}</pre>

In there:

{% set args = { post_type: 'restaurant', posts_per_page: -1 } %}

This line of code is to declare to get posts from the 'restaurant' post type.

The function mb.get_posts( ) is to get posts. And I also have a loop to get multiple posts as above.

Since we just want to display only the restaurants which are featured, we need to add a condition inside the loop.

Add a condition inside the loop

<pre>{% if post.feature_the_restaurant == 1 %}
{% endif %}</pre>

This is the condition to display the selected posts only. feature_the_restaurant is the ID of the Switch field. Corresponding to the On and Off status of it, the value that is saved will be 1 and 0, respectively. So, this line of code means that if the posts have the switch field turned On, they will be displayed.

Now, let’s insert fields inside the condition to display information from the posts. You can easily get these lines of code by using the Insert Fields button and then choose the corresponding fields you want to get the data from.

Insert the fields inside the condition

<pre><img src="{{ post.thumbnail.full.url }}" alt="{{ post.thumbnail.full.alt }}" width="{{ post.thumbnail.full.width }}" height="{{ post.thumbnail.full.height }}" />
<img class="logo" src="{{ post.logo.full.url }}" alt="{{ post.logo.full.alt }}" width="{{ post.logo.full.width }}" height="{{ post.logo.full.height }}" />
{% for item in post.voucher %}
{{ item.label }}
{% endfor %}
{{ post.title }}
{{ post.address }}</pre>

Add the code

That’s all for the code to get the information of the restaurants.

Now, set this template type as shortcode. After publishing, there will be a shortcode automatically generated like this:

Set the template type as shortcode

Let’s display the section on the homepage. Go to edit the homepage and choose the area where you want to add the section. In there, add a Heading block to name the section.

Add a Heading block to name the section Next, add a Shortcode block, paste the one you’ve just copied from the view.

Add a Shortcode block

Add the shortcode

Now, all the restaurants’ information has been displayed.

All the information has been obtained

Let’s move to the next step to style this section.

Style the Section

Back to Views and edit the created template. We’ll add some div classes to the code first.

Edit the created template

Next, go to the CSS tab and add some code.

Add some code in the CSS

I’ve uploaded all the code that I used on Github so you can easily refer to it.

Now, you’ll see the new look of the section on the homepage.

The new look on the homepage

Last Words

With MB Views, it’s a very convenient and quick way to show the featured restaurants anywhere on your site no matter what theme or builders you are using. Furthermore, whenever you change the page design, the section will be not affected. Let’s try it and enjoy!