An annoying problem I’ve had lately that somehow is almost impossible to troubleshoot online is enabling or finding custom fields in WordPress without adding a plugin like Advanced Custom Fields (which is typically what I recommend using). This should work I believe with any version of WordPress after about 3.1 as well, where the Custom Fields are hidden by default.
Enabling Custom Fields Without a Plugin
1. Go to the post or page where you want them to be displayed in the edit post/page screen.
2. Near the top-right corner of the window, click the “Screen Options” button. In my image I have labeled this, “A.”
3. Check the box that has appeared labeled, “Custom Fields.” In my image I have labeled this, “B.”
4. That’s it! Your custom fields should appear at the bottom of the screen, scroll down if you don’t see it.
A particular problem I was having was using S2Member Pro, which is a great plugin that allows custom membership options and subscriber roles. I have it set up to work with Authorize.net for payment, and in order to accept payments on the site, you must have an SSL certificate. So how do I force SSL authentication?
With Custom fields! The short tutorial s2Member gives you just says to enter a field s2member_force_ssl = yes
So how do we do that? It’s pretty basic. You go down to the custom fields section, click “Enter new” under the drop-down box for ‘Name’ and enter “s2member_force_ssl".
For the Value, you simply put, “yes”.
Then you save your changes and you are good to go. Note, of course, that you must have a valid SSL certificate set up for the site for this to work. Hopefully this will help you in your website journey!