Fields and Filters — Configuring What Shows Where

Skill level: Beginner
Time to complete: 10–15 minutes
Prerequisites: A directory registered in Friendly CPT Listing (see Getting Started)

What You’ll Learn

How to access the Setup and Fields tabs for a directory
What each Setup tab setting controls
How to decide which fields appear on cards, in filters, and on the detail page
How file download fields work on cards and the detail page
How to reorder fields
What’s different when working with a Friendly CSV Importer directory

Accessing the Settings

Go to Tools → Friendly CPT Listings
Find your directory in the table
Click the Settings button to open the Setup tab, or Fields to go directly to the Fields tab

Both tabs are within the same configuration screen. Click the tab labels to switch between them.

The Setup Tab

The Setup tab controls the overall behaviour of your directory.

Labels and Slug

Setting	What It Does	Notes
Singular Label	Name for a single record — used in headings and buttons	e.g., “Member”
Plural Label	Name for multiple records — used in the back link and headings	e.g., “Members”
URL Slug	The base segment in detail page URLs	Native CPTs only. Read-only for CSV Importer CPTs.

Display Settings

Setting	Options	What It Controls
Items Per Page	6, 9, 12, 18, 24, 36, 48	How many cards appear before pagination kicks in
Order By	Title, Date, or any meta field	The default sort order for the card grid
Featured Image	none / card / template / both	Where to display the post’s featured image
Detail Page Max Width	Any CSS value e.g. `800px`, `1200px`, `100%`, `none`	Constrains the width of the detail page content area

Featured Image options:

none — images are not shown anywhere
card — images appear on the listing cards only
template — images appear on the detail page only
both — images appear on both cards and the detail page

Detail Page Max Width: The default is 800px, which suits text-heavy directories. For wider layouts (especially 3-column), try 1200px or 100%. Set to none or leave blank to remove the constraint entirely. See the Detail Page KB for more.

Action Type

This setting controls how email and URL fields are rendered on the detail page:

Option	Result
none	Email and URL fields shown as regular inline links
email	Email fields rendered as a prominent “Send Email” button at the bottom of the detail page
url	URL fields rendered as a prominent “Visit Website” button
both	Both email and URL fields get buttons

For a members directory where you want each profile to have a prominent contact button, set this to email or both.

Redirect URL for Removed Entries

If a record is deleted from WordPress, visitors who have bookmarked the old URL will land on a 404 page by default. Enter a URL here to redirect them to a specific page instead — typically your main listing page or a “this listing has been removed” page.

Leave blank to allow the default 404 behaviour.

The Fields Tab

The Fields tab is where you control what information appears in each area of your directory: on listing cards, in the filter panel, and on the detail page.

The Three Checkboxes

Each field has three checkboxes:

Checkbox	Where it appears	What it does
On Card	The listing card in the grid	Shows this field’s value on each card
Filter	The filter dropdowns above the listing	Adds a dropdown filter for this field
Template	The single-item detail page	Shows this field on the individual record page, and makes it available in the Template Layout Builder

You can tick any combination for each field. A field can appear in all three places, none of them, or any mix.

File Upload fields are an exception: the Filter checkbox is disabled for them — attachment IDs are not meaningful values for faceted filtering. On Card and Template work normally.

The Content Field (Post Body)

At the top of the field table you’ll see a Content row. This represents the post’s main body text — whatever is written in the WordPress block editor or classic editor for each record. It’s a core WordPress field rather than a custom meta field.

Checkbox	Behaviour
On Card	Shows a short excerpt (approximately 25 words) on each listing card. Useful if your records have a bio or description in the body.
Filter	Not available — body text is not suitable for faceted filtering.
Template	Makes Content available in the Template Layout Builder so you can drag it into a column on the detail page.

If Content is not placed in a column in the layout builder, the post body is displayed in its own “About” section below the field columns — the same place it has always appeared. Existing directories are not affected.

If Content is placed in a column, the full formatted body (blocks, headings, images, etc.) renders inside that column instead of the “About” section.

File Download Fields

If a field has type File Upload (set in CPT CSV Importer, or mapped as data type upload during import), it displays differently from regular text fields:

On Card: When On Card is ticked, a download link using the field’s label appears directly on the card. Clicking it downloads the file from the Media Library. If the field has no attachment, nothing is shown.
Template: File upload fields marked Template appear as download buttons on the detail page. See the Detail Page KB for full details.
Filter: Not available for file fields.

The generic attachment field added by the Allow File Upload CPT setting (_cpt_upload, labelled “Attachment”) works exactly the same way once it is detected by CPTListing.

Important: The post title is always shown as the card heading and detail page heading — you don’t need to configure it.

How Filters Work

When you tick Filter on a field:

A dropdown appears above the card grid for that field
The dropdown lists all distinct values found in published records
Each value shows a count of how many records match
Counts update dynamically as other filters are applied
Options with zero remaining results are greyed out

Taxonomy fields make the best filters — they’re designed for shared values across records (like Department, Region, or Skills). Meta fields can also be used as filters; the plugin collects distinct values from the database. File Upload fields cannot be used as filters.

The Template Layout Builder

When fields are marked Template, they can optionally be arranged into a 2 or 3 column layout on the detail page using the Template Layout Builder at the bottom of the Fields tab.

The builder lets you drag fields into Left, Middle (3-column only), and Right column zones, and set the proportional width of each column. The Content field is always available in the builder pool.

For full details, see the Detail Page and Template Customisation KB — the layout builder is covered in depth there.

Reordering Fields

Field order matters in two places:

Card fields — fields marked On Card appear in the order you set here
Filters — filter dropdowns appear in the order you set here

To reorder:

Hover over the drag handle on the left side of any field row
Click and drag to your desired position
Release to drop
Click Save to save the new order

Practical Example: Members Directory

Here’s how you might configure a members directory with fields for Name, Job Title, Department, Region, Bio, Email, and Website.

On Card

Show the information that helps someone quickly assess whether a member is relevant to them:

Job Title — on card
Department — on card
Region — on card
Bio — on card (will be truncated automatically on cards)

Name (the post title) always shows as the card heading.

Filter

Use the fields visitors will actually want to filter by:

Department — filter
Region — filter

If you have a Skills field with multiple values per record (a taxonomy), that works well as a filter too.

Template

Show everything on the detail page — visitors clicked through because they want the full picture:

Job Title — template
Department — template
Region — template
Bio — template
Email — template (will be an action button if Action Type is set to email or both)
Website — template (will be an action button if Action Type is set to url or both)

Friendly CSV Importer CPTs: What’s Different

When your directory is linked from Friendly CSV Importer, the Fields tab looks slightly different:

Field definitions are read-only — you cannot rename fields, change their types, or add new ones. All of that is managed in Friendly CSV Importer’s Manage Fields screen.
The three checkboxes are still editable — On Card, Filter, and Template work exactly the same way.
Drag to reorder still works — you can change the display order of fields.

If you need to add or rename a field, go to Tools → Friendly CSV Importer, find your CPT, and click Manage Fields.

Troubleshooting

A filter is showing but has no options

The field needs to have values in actual published records. If records exist but the field is empty for all of them, the filter dropdown will be empty.
For Friendly CSV Importer CPTs, verify the import mapped that column correctly and the data came through.

Cards aren’t showing the fields I ticked

Make sure you saved after making changes — look for the Save button at the bottom of the Fields tab.
Clear any page caching if you’re using a caching plugin or host-level CDN.

The filter counts seem wrong

Counts are calculated in real time based on published posts. Drafts and private posts are excluded.
If you’ve recently deleted records, the counts should update on the next page load.

I can’t find a field in the Fields tab

For native CPTs, fields only appear in the Fields tab after you add them using the Add New Field form. Scroll to the bottom of the Fields tab.
For Friendly CSV Importer CPTs, the fields available are exactly those that were defined during the import.

The Content excerpt isn’t showing on cards

Tick On Card for the Content row at the top of the field table, then save.
The excerpt only shows if the record has content in the WordPress editor. If the body is empty, nothing is rendered.

Content isn’t appearing in the Template Layout Builder pool

Content always appears in the pool — it doesn’t require the Template checkbox. If the pool seems empty, check that you’ve scrolled down to the layout builder section at the bottom of the Fields tab, and that at least one regular field is also marked Template.

Next Steps

Getting Started: Register a Directory and Place the Shortcode — if you haven’t set up your directory yet
The Detail Page and Template Customisation — customise the single-item view, action buttons, and template overrides