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Home » Course lessons » Front-end Forms for Editing Content in WordPress

Front-end Forms for Editing Content in WordPress

With Toolset, you can create front-end forms that allow users to edit existing posts directly from the front-end.

Duration

Creating and using front-end forms for editing content and users involves the following three steps:

  1. Create the form for editing
  2. Create a Content Template for displaying the editing form
  3. Insert link to the Content Template that displays the form

Let’s go over each of these steps one by one. On this page, we use an example of a form for editing content but the workflow is the same for forms that edit users.

For forms that edit users, Toolset Access must be active and the role that uses the form must have permissions to edit other users.

Create the form for editing

Creating the form for editing is exactly the same as for the forms for adding content (or registering users).

Go to the Toolset → Post Forms page and click the Add New button at the top. Follow the wizard to create your form.

In the third step, make sure to select that this form will Edit existing content.

Creating a form for editing content
Creating a form for editing content

Create a Content Template for displaying the editing form

Go to the Toolset → Content Templates page and click the Add New button at the top.

In a dialog that appears, give a name to your template. Don’t assign it to any content and click the Create Content Template button.

On the Content Template editing page, insert the Toolset Form block and select the editing form you created in the previous step.

Inserting the editing form into the Content Template
Inserting the editing form into the Content Template

Besides the form itself, you can optionally add any text and other content to this Content Template. For example, you might add some editing guidelines.

Insert link to the Content Template that displays the form

Finally, in this last step, you need to insert links to the Content Template that displays the editing form. This is the Content Template you created in the previous step.

There are two places you can insert this link into:

  1. Content Templates for displaying single posts
  2. Views that list items, like posts or users

When designing templates for displaying single posts, you might want to display a link to edit the post that is being viewed.

Link to edit a single post that is being viewed
Link to edit a single post that is being viewed

Edit the Content Template for displaying single posts and insert the Toolset Fields and Text block.

Insert Fields and text block
Insert the “Fields and Text” block

The Fields and Text block editor will appear. Click the Forms button inside this editor.

Forms button
Forms button

In the dialog that appears, look under the Other Toolset Forms actionssection and click the Edit post link button.

Inserting the edit-post link into the Content Template that displays single posts
Inserting the edit-post link into the Content Template that displays single posts

In the dialog that appears, select the Content Template that displays your editing form. Click the Insert shortcode button.

Selecting the Content Template that displays an editing form
Selecting the Content Template that displays an editing form

That’s it, a link to edit the current post will now display on your single posts.

When you have Views that list items, like posts, for example, you might want to allow users with the right permission to edit each of the items in the list.

The following image shows an example of a list of posts with an edit link next to each listed item.

List of custom posts with an editing link for each
A list of custom posts with an editing link for each

To insert the link to edit listed posts, start by editing that View.

Insert the Fields and Text block in the place where you want to add the edit link.

The Fields and Text block editor will appear. Click the Forms button inside this editor.

Forms button
The Forms button in the “Fields and Text” block

In the dialog that appears, look under the Other Toolset Forms actions section and click the Edit post link button.

Inserting the edit-post link into the Content Template that displays single posts
Inserting the edit-post link into the Content Template that displays single posts

In the dialog that appears, select the Content Template that displays your editing form. Click the Insert shortcode button.

Selecting the Content Template that displays an editing form
Selecting the Content Template that displays an editing form

That’s it, a link to edit the post will now appear for each post listed by the View.

Display form elements side by side

You can arrange form elements in columns by drag and dropping them next to each other.

However, Bootstrap must be enabled on your website for this to work. This is because Toolset forms use Bootstrap’s responsive grid system.

Your site should have Bootstrap enabled by default. If you aren’t able to drag-and-drop form elements next to each other, go to the Toolset → Settings page and find the Bootstrap loading section. There, make sure that the Toolset should load Bootstrap option is selected. You can select between Bootstrap version 3 and 4.

Once your site is loading Bootstrap you will be able to arrange form elements next to each other.

Control Access to Front-End Forms

Your site’s users shouldn’t be able to edit other people’s posts but only their own. Toolset allows you to easily set which posts can different types of users edit using forms.

For more details and a video about this, visit the lesson about controlling access to forms.

Style the editing form

Toolset forms look good and are responsive out-of-the-box. However, you might want to adjust their style to fit your website design even more.

Check out the detailed lesson to learn how to style Toolset forms.

Main Toolset Block Used in this Lesson

Form

Forms for front-end content submission and editing

Dario
Updated
May 19, 2021
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