WordPress – How to setup simple User Roles for WordPress Custom Post Type

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I'm working on a system for temps/part-timers using WordPress. To go about this I'm making a new custom post type EMPLOYEE and I need 2 corresponding users AGENT and CUSTOMER for it:

The AGENT user can create and edit his own EMPLOYEE(s), but not edit the EMPLOYEE(s) of other AGENT(s).
The EMPLOYEE post can be viewed and commented on by all AGENTs, CUSTOMERs and the general public,
which also implies that the CUSTOMER user can only view all EMPLOYEE posts.
The CUSTOMER user needs to be differentiated from the general public because once they hire an EMPLOYEE, the system needs to associate them with the EMPLOYEE, thus the need for the CUSTOMER to be a signed-in user.
Finally, both AGENT and CUSTOMER users can create/edit their own vanilla WordPress user profiles and sign-in with their username/password combination.

How do I execute this arrangement? The online documentation on users and capabilities had me pulling my hair and runnin around in circles. So far here's my custom post type registration, and I'm currently setting up the meta boxes for other info for this post type:

register_post_type( 'employee',
    array(
        'labels' => array(
            'name' => __('Employees','tdom'),
            'singular_name' => __('Employee','tdom'),
            'add_new' => __( 'Add New' ),
            'add_new_item' => __( 'Add New Employee' ),
            'edit' => __( 'Edit' ),
            'edit_item' => __( 'Edit Employee' ),
            'new_item' => __( 'New Employee' ),
            'view' => __( 'View Employee' ),
            'view_item' => __( 'View Employee' ),
            'search_items' => __( 'Search Employees' ),
            'not_found' => __( 'No Employees found' ),
            'not_found_in_trash' => __( 'No Employees found in Trash' ),
            'parent' => __( 'Parent Employee' )
        ),
        'public' => true,
        'show_ui' => true,
        'query_var' => true,
        'menu_icon' => get_stylesheet_directory_uri() . '/images/emp_icon.png',
        'menu_position' => 4,
        'capability_type' => 'post',
        'hierarchical' => false,
        'rewrite' => true,
        'supports' => array('title', 'thumbnail', 'author')
    )
);

I've come across Justin Tadlock's Members plugin (very popular on Google and forums), but I was hoping my requirements are simple enough not to use a plugin anymore. It's also a bit too much to wrap my head around.

Help. Thanks in advance.

Best Answer

This really shouldn't be terribly difficult.

The first step is to create a custom capability type to correspond to your custom post type, via the 'capability_type' parameter passed to register_post_type(). You're using the default, i.e.:

'capability_type' => 'post',

Set that to something else, perhaps 'employee', and as per the Codex, also set 'map_meta_cap' to true:

'capability_type' => 'employee',
'map_meta_cap'    => true,

The next step is to add the related capabilities to your custom users, via the $capabilities parameter passed to your call to add_role(). For the "employee" user role, you'll want to add edit_employee et al (edit_, delete_, etc.), and for the "agent" user role, you'll want to include edit_employee et al, along with edit_others_employee et al.

Related Solutions

WordPress – How to add custom fields to the custom post type in WordPress 3

I found this series of tutorials were very helpful:

And if you want a straight up code sample, this code is basically the template that I use for myself: (Using Scribu's optimal script loading technique)

final class Metabox_Example {
    // These hook into to the two core actions we need to perform; creating the metabox, and saving it's contents when it is posted
    public function __construct() {
        // http://codex.wordpress.org/Plugin_API/Action_Reference/add_meta_boxes
        add_action( 'add_meta_boxes', array( $this, 'create_meta_box' ) );

        // http://codex.wordpress.org/Plugin_API/Action_Reference/save_post
        add_filter( 'save_post', array( $this, 'save_meta_box' ), 10, 2 );
    }

    public function create_meta_box( $post_type, $post ) {
        // http://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/add_meta_box
        add_meta_box(
            'location_information_meta_box', // (string) (required) HTML 'id' attribute of the edit screen section
            __( 'Location Information', 'plugin-namespace' ), // (string) (required) Title of the edit screen section, visible to user
            array( $this, 'print_meta_box' ), // (callback) (required) Function that prints out the HTML for the edit screen section. The function name as a string, or, within a class, an array to call one of the class's methods.
            'location', // (string) (required) The type of Write screen on which to show the edit screen section ('post', 'page', 'dashboard', 'link', 'attachment' or 'custom_post_type' where custom_post_type is the custom post type slug)
            'normal', // (string) (optional) The part of the page where the edit screen section should be shown ('normal', 'advanced', or 'side')
            'high' // (string) (optional) The priority within the context where the boxes should show ('high', 'core', 'default' or 'low')
        );
    }

    public function print_meta_box( $post, $metabox ) {
        ?>
            <!-- These hidden fields are a registry of metaboxes that need to be saved if you wanted to output multiple boxes. The current metabox ID is added to the array. -->
            <input type="hidden" name="meta_box_ids[]" value="<?php echo $metabox['id']; ?>" />
            <!-- http://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/wp_nonce_field -->
            <?php wp_nonce_field( 'save_' . $metabox['id'], $metabox['id'] . '_nonce' ); ?>

            <!-- This is a sample of fields that are associated with the metabox. You will notice that get_post_meta is trying to get previously saved information associated with the metabox. -->
            <!-- http://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/get_post_meta -->
            <table class="form-table">
            <tr><th><label for="location_address"><?php _e( 'Street Address', 'plugin-namespace' ); ?></label></th>
            <td><input name="location_address" type="text" id="location_address" value="<?php echo get_post_meta($post->ID, 'location_address', true); ?>" class="regular-text"></td></tr>
            <tr><th><label for="location_city"><?php _e( 'City', 'plugin-namespace' ); ?></label></th>
            <td><input name="location_city" type="text" id="location_city" value="<?php echo get_post_meta($post->ID, 'location_city', true); ?>" class="regular-text"></td></tr>
            <tr><th><label for="location_province"><?php _e( 'State/Province', 'plugin-namespace' ); ?></label></th>
            <td><input name="location_province" type="text" id="location_province" value="<?php echo get_post_meta($post->ID, 'location_province', true); ?>" class="regular-text"></td></tr>
            <tr><th><label for="location_postalcode"><?php _e( 'Postal Code', 'plugin-namespace' ); ?></label></th>
            <td><input name="location_postalcode" type="text" id="location_postalcode" value="<?php echo get_post_meta($post->ID, 'location_postalcode', true); ?>" class="regular-text"></td></tr>
            <tr><th><label for="location_country"><?php _e( 'Country', 'plugin-namespace' ); ?></label></th>
            <td><input name="location_country" type="text" id="location_country" value="<?php echo get_post_meta($post->ID, 'location_country', true); ?>" class="regular-text"></td></tr>
            </table>

            <!-- These hidden fields are a registry of fields that need to be saved for each metabox. The field names correspond to the field name output above. -->
            <input type="hidden" name="<?php echo $metabox['id']; ?>_fields[]" value="location_address" />
            <input type="hidden" name="<?php echo $metabox['id']; ?>_fields[]" value="location_city" />
            <input type="hidden" name="<?php echo $metabox['id']; ?>_fields[]" value="location_province" />
            <input type="hidden" name="<?php echo $metabox['id']; ?>_fields[]" value="location_postalcode" />
            <input type="hidden" name="<?php echo $metabox['id']; ?>_fields[]" value="location_country" />
        <?php
    }

    public function save_meta_box( $post_id, $post ) {
        // Check if this information is being submitted by means of an autosave; if so, then do not process any of the following code
        if( defined( 'DOING_AUTOSAVE' ) && DOING_AUTOSAVE ){ return; }

        // Determine if the postback contains any metaboxes that need to be saved
        if( empty( $_POST['meta_box_ids'] ) ){ return; }

        // Iterate through the registered metaboxes
        foreach( $_POST['meta_box_ids'] as $metabox_id ){
            // Verify thhe request to update this metabox
            if( ! wp_verify_nonce( $_POST[ $metabox_id . '_nonce' ], 'save_' . $metabox_id ) ){ continue; }

            // Determine if the metabox contains any fields that need to be saved
            if( count( $_POST[ $metabox_id . '_fields' ] ) == 0 ){ continue; }

            // Iterate through the registered fields        
            foreach( $_POST[ $metabox_id . '_fields' ] as $field_id ){
                // Update or create the submitted contents of the fiels as post meta data
                // http://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/update_post_meta
                update_post_meta($post_id, $field_id, $_POST[ $field_id ]);
            }
        }

        return $post;
    }
}

$metabox_example = new Metabox_Example();

Best Answer

Related Solutions

WordPress – How to add custom fields to the custom post type in WordPress 3

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