Joomla Fields, commonly known as "Custom Fields", are a feature that allows you to add extra attributes to:

• Content: Articles and Categories.
• Contacts: Contacts, Categories and Mail.
• Users.

The data is entered into fields of specific built-in types. You can add other field types not included in Joomla distributions. Custom Fields are organised into Field Groups, which present themselves as added tabs in the edit screens of your content, user, and contact editors. All Custom Fields included in a given Field Group will appear on that group's tab in one of those editors. Any field NOT included in a Field Group will appear on a tab named "Fields".

Custom Fields add to the information associated with each individual user account, contact record, article, or category. For instance, you could add new fields to a contact for things like a picture,  an author bio, etc. These fields can be defined to be either required or optional. The data entered in these fields can be rendered in frontend content, or used for further processing.

You can directly display custom fields for articles into an article text by including {field:n} into your article text, where n is the id of a specific Custom Field. This is rendered by the Content Fields plugin.

Field Types

All Custom Field types are available to use in all three of the above contexts. 

• Calendar - Allows a date/time to be selected from a popup calendar
• Checkboxes - Provides a list of checkboxes from which the user can select one or multiple items
• Colour - Provides a popup colour picker. The colour itself can be used in styles within an article body, for instance.
• Editor - Provides a rich text (WYSIWYG) editor
• Integer - Allows entry of whole numbers. The field includes increment buttons and the increment is part of the field definition.
• List - Provides a list of textual options from which the user can select either one or multiple text items to be displayed either vertically or horizontally
• List of Images - Provides a list of image options from which the user can select either one or multiple text items to be displayed either vertically or horizontally
• Media - Allows a single image to be included in the content
• Note - Makes it possible to create titles, texts, descriptions and even alert boxes
• Number - Allows entry of real (fractional) numbers.
• Radio - Provides a list of buttons from which the user can select a single item
• SQL - Provides a drop down list of entries obtained from a database query
• Subform - Allows a selection of fields to be grouped together in a repeatable list
• Text - Provides a box into which the user can enter a single line of plain text
• Textarea - Provides a box into which the user can enter a larger amount of plain text
• URL - Provides entry of a URL link to another document
• User - Allows selection of a user from a list of users
• Usergroup - Allows selection of one or more user groups from a list of those available

Related Topics

Custom Fields enhance certain other Joomla features.

• Multilingual Sites - Display of labels and descriptions of fields and field groups in the user's language
• Template Overrides - Create content templates that provide additional positions for Custom Fields