Set front page option using custom fields?

Question

Hello wordpress gurus!

I want to be able to set the frontpage via a custom field.

So for example, in the new page area in the wordpress admin there is a custom field that displays "Set as frontage", instead of the user going to the Settings > Reading settings and setting the front page there they can do it via the new page.

I'm familiar with metaboxes and some coding but i'm not sure how i could implement this.

I also found this article on setting the front page programatically:

http://kuttler.eu/code/set-static-front-page-and-blog-page-programmatically-in-wordpress/

Its just the matter of putting it together with the custom field.

Help appreciated. Thanks

Answer 1

You can do it by updating 2 options.

<?php
    //This could be page or posts.
    update_option('show_on_front', '<posts/page>');

    //This one sets the page you want on front, won't work if the above option is set to 'posts'.
    update_option('page_on_front', '<id of the page you want to set as front page>');
?>

Though I cannot guarantee if this is safe and whether it will override the settings saved from the backend!

Answer 2

First things first - the front page is a system wide setting (by definition). Using a post meta is not the right choice. That said, you can use metaboxes to update the options itself. What you may want to do is to display a meta box that displays the current front page and also allows the user to set the current page as the front page from your metabox.

Have a look at options-reading.php to see what keys are used for front page and blog page.