Adding and customizing admin columns in WordPress

Cus­to­mi­zing the Word­Press admin panel can con­tri­bu­te signi­fi­cant­ly to effi­ci­en­cy and usa­bi­li­ty, espe­ci­al­ly when mana­ging a lar­ge amount of con­tent or cus­tom post types. One of the most effec­ti­ve ways to achie­ve this is by adding and cus­to­mi­zing admin colum­ns for post types, pages, users or cus­tom records.

In this blog post, I’ll show you how to add your own colum­ns to the Word­Press admin area using PHP and cus­to­mi­ze them to your liking.

Why should you customize admin columns? #

The stan­dard colum­ns that Word­Press dis­plays in the admin area are often not suf­fi­ci­ent to show all the infor­ma­ti­on you want to have a quick over­view of. By adding addi­tio­nal colum­ns, you can dis­play important data such as cus­tom fields, post sta­tis­tics or meta­da­ta.

Steps to customize the admin columns in WordPress #

Add columns #

You can use Word­Press hooks such as manage_posts_columns or manage_${post_type}_posts_columns to cus­to­mi­ze the stan­dard colum­ns. For exam­p­le, to add a new column for the post type “Books”, the code looks like this:

function my_custom_book_columns($columns) {
    // Neue Spalte hinzufügen
    $columns['book_author'] = __('Autor');
    return $columns;
}
add_filter('manage_book_posts_columns', 'my_custom_book_columns');

This code adds a new column cal­led “Aut­hor” to the admin panel of the cus­tom post type “Books”.

Show column content #

After you have added the column, you must fill the con­tents of this column for each row in the list of posts. You can do this with the manage_posts_custom_column hook:

function my_custom_book_column_content($column, $post_id) {
    if ($column == 'book_author') {
        $author = get_post_meta($post_id, 'book_author', true);
        echo esc_html($author);
    }
}
add_action('manage_book_posts_custom_column', 'my_custom_book_column_content', 10, 2);

Here, the value of the user-defi­ned field book_author, which is saved for each post, is dis­play­ed in the new “Aut­hor” column.

Add sortable columns #

It is also pos­si­ble to make colum­ns sor­ta­ble, which is par­ti­cu­lar­ly useful if you want to sort by a spe­ci­fic aut­hor or date, for exam­p­le. To do this, add the fil­ter manage_edit-${post_type}_sortable_columns:

function my_sortable_book_columns($columns) {
    $columns['book_author'] = 'book_author';
    return $columns;
}
add_filter('manage_edit-book_sortable_columns', 'my_sortable_book_columns');

This code makes the “Aut­hor” column sor­ta­ble. Plea­se note, howe­ver, that an addi­tio­nal pre_get_posts hook is requi­red for sort­ing to work.

function my_book_column_orderby($query) {
    if (!is_admin()) {
        return;
    }

    $orderby = $query->get('orderby');
    if ('book_author' == $orderby) {
        $query->set('meta_key', 'book_author');
        $query->set('orderby', 'meta_value');
    }
}
add_action('pre_get_posts', 'my_book_column_orderby');

This addi­tio­nal code ensu­res that the user-defi­ned field book_author is sor­ted.

Adjust column width (optional) #

If you want to chan­ge the width of the colum­ns, you can do this with CSS. You can extend the Word­Press admin area with the admin_head hook:

function my_custom_column_width() {
    echo '<style>
        .column-book_author { width: 20%; }
    </style>';
}
add_action('admin_head', 'my_custom_column_width');

The width of the “Aut­hor” column is set to 20 % here.

Example: Custom columns for a plugin or theme #

A com­mon use case is adding cus­tom colum­ns for a cus­tom plug­in or the­me. Here’s ano­ther exam­p­le of how you could add the rating and date of the review for a cus­tom post type “Reviews”:

function my_custom_review_columns($columns) {
    $columns['review_rating'] = __('Bewertung');
    $columns['review_date'] = __('Rezensionsdatum');
    return $columns;
}
add_filter('manage_review_posts_columns', 'my_custom_review_columns');

function my_custom_review_column_content($column, $post_id) {
    switch ($column) {
        case 'review_rating':
            $rating = get_post_meta($post_id, 'review_rating', true);
            echo esc_html($rating);
            break;
        case 'review_date':
            $date = get_post_meta($post_id, 'review_date', true);
            echo esc_html($date);
            break;
    }
}
add_action('manage_review_posts_custom_column', 'my_custom_review_column_content', 10, 2);

In this exam­p­le, you add two new colum­ns — “Rating” and “Review date” — for the post type “Reviews” and fill them with cus­tom fields.

Conclusion #

Adding and cus­to­mi­zing admin colum­ns in Word­Press is a gre­at way to impro­ve the over­view of your con­tent and opti­mi­ze work­flows. With the PHP examp­les shown here, you can dis­play cus­tom infor­ma­ti­on in the admin list views of your web­site.

By adding sor­ta­ble colum­ns, dyna­mi­cal­ly fil­ling column con­tent and making adjus­t­ments such as the width of the colum­ns, you can tail­or the backend of your Word­Press instal­la­ti­on to your needs.