Add custom column to managing posts panel

WordPress wp-admin shows you a list of posts and pages with their details such as title, author, categories, tags, comments, date.

Sometimes you might want to add new customized column to this page, such as ‘Author Gravatar’, ‘Views’ or ‘Thumbnails’. This post will demonstrate how to go about it.

Here we are going to add post author gravatar column to post management page without the need of any third-party plugin.

We can add this column using theme or plugin. From the below image  you will get  overview what I am going to explain you.

First we need to register the column which we are going to add. Register column using "manage_posts_columns" filter.

add_filter( 'manage_posts_columns', 'rt_add_gravatar_col');

function rt_add_gravatar_col($cols) {

$cols['author_gravatar'] = __('Gravatar');

return $cols;

}

The function ‘rt_add_gravatar_col’ takes one argument ‘$cols’. Which is an array of the default registered columns.

Now we have to add action ‘manage_pages_custom_column’ to display new column. You can add action hook as follows:

add_action( 'manage_posts_custom_column', 'rt_get_author_gravatar');

function rt_get_author_gravatar($column_name ) {

if ( $column_name  == 'author_gravatar'  ) {

echo get_avatar( get_the_author_email(), '35' );

}

}

The function  ‘rt_get_author_gravatar’ takes one argument ‘$column_name’ which is the name of the column. WordPress get_avatar( get_the_author_email(), ’35’ ) gives you gravatar of an author. As I used the ‘get_avatar’ function code you can use any other function code.

You can use the filter 'manage_pages_columns‘ for  page management and action ‘manage_pages_custom_column‘ to display the column.

Similarly for custom post types you can use ‘manage_movie_columns’ filter and ‘manage_movie_custom_column’ action. Here I am  used movie as custom post type.  Replace ‘movie’ word  with your custom post type.

Hopefully this will help you add a custom column to the post and page overview. Do drop in your views and suggestions through your comments.