README

A modern, developer-friendly WordPress meta box builder with 30+ field types, a visual admin UI, nested/repeatable groups, conditional logic, REST API, Gutenberg sidebar, WP-CLI, and more.

Installation

composer require emneslab/custom-meta-box-builder

Note: This package uses composer/installers with type wordpress-plugin. In a standard WordPress setup it installs to wp-content/plugins/. In Bedrock it installs to web/app/plugins/.

Activate the plugin:

wp plugin activate custom-meta-box-builder

Requirements

• PHP 8.1+
• WordPress 6.0+

Quick Start

Register a meta box via PHP

add_custom_meta_box('cmb-book-details', 'Book Details', ['post', 'page'], [
    ['id' => 'book_title',   'type' => 'text',     'label' => 'Book Title', 'required' => true],
    ['id' => 'book_summary', 'type' => 'textarea', 'label' => 'Summary'],
    ['id' => 'book_genre',   'type' => 'select',   'label' => 'Genre', 'options' => [
        'fiction'     => 'Fiction',
        'non_fiction' => 'Non-Fiction',
        'sci_fi'     => 'Science Fiction',
    ]],
    ['id' => 'book_price', 'type' => 'number', 'label' => 'Price'],
], 'normal', 'high');

Retrieve saved data

// Using the public API
$title = cmb_get_field('book_title');
cmb_the_field('book_title'); // echoes escaped value

// Or standard WordPress
$title = get_post_meta(get_the_ID(), 'book_title', true);

Visual Admin Builder

Navigate to CMB Builder in the WordPress admin to create field groups without code. The builder includes:

• Drag-and-drop field ordering
• Live PHP code generation
• Template code snippets (Result tab)
• Import/Export (JSON)

Features

• 30+ field types — text, textarea, number, select, checkbox, radio, file, image, gallery, color, date, time, range, toggle, password, post, user, taxonomy, group, flexible content, message, divider, and more
• Repeatable fields — any field can be made repeatable
• Nested groups — unlimited depth group-in-group nesting
• Drag-and-drop — sortable repeater rows
• Tabs — organize fields into tabbed sections
• Conditional logic — show/hide fields based on other field values (AND/OR)
• Validation — required, email, url, min, max, numeric, pattern rules
• Flexible layouts — horizontal, inline, responsive width classes (25%–100%)
• Taxonomy meta — add fields to category/tag edit screens
• User profile meta — add fields to user profile pages
• Options pages — create admin settings pages
• REST API — expose fields via show_in_rest
• Gutenberg sidebar — display fields in block editor sidebar
• WP-CLI — wp cmb list, wp cmb get, wp cmb set
• Frontend forms — cmb_render_form() / cmb_the_form()
• Gutenberg blocks — cmb_register_block() API
• WPGraphQL — auto-register fields in GraphQL schema
• Import/Export — JSON configurations
• Multi-language — per-locale field values
• Bulk operations — batch meta updates
• Extensible — create custom field types by extending AbstractField

Field Types

Extending

Create a custom field type:

namespace MyPlugin\Fields;

use CMB\Core\Contracts\Abstracts\AbstractField;

class RatingField extends AbstractField {
    public function render(): void {
        $value = $this->getValue();
        printf(
            '<input type="range" name="%s" value="%s" min="1" max="5" step="1">',
            esc_attr($this->getNameAttribute()),
            esc_attr($value)
        );
    }

    public function sanitize(mixed $value): mixed {
        return max(1, min(5, (int) $value));
    }
}

Register it:

use CMB\Core\FieldFactory;

FieldFactory::registerType('rating', \MyPlugin\Fields\RatingField::class);

Hooks

All hooks fire with the cmbbuilder_ prefix (legacy cmb_ prefix is deprecated):

Documentation

See the docs/ directory:

• Getting Started
• Field Types
• Groups & Repeaters
• Configuration Reference
• Hooks Reference
• Extending
• Advanced Features
• Testing

Testing

composer install
composer test

License

GPL-2.0-or-later. See LICENSE.