Custom Plugs is a UK based online retailer of body jewellery, plugs, ear gauges and alternative clothing. When migrating to Shopify with the help of Liquify Shopify experts they were advised to use Accentuate Custom Fields. Here Joe Dempsey, an experienced Shopify theme developer from Liquify, explains how and why they used ACF for this custom build

Why Accentuate Custom Fields was chosen over other Metafield apps

Accentuate Custom Fields was chosen by me as it’s the most flexible and powerful metafields app on the market. It does the job and gives us the flexibility to create a simple interface which clients understand. This is what most metafield apps are missing. You need to be a developer to even add a metafield with many apps. They are not built for end user clients. ACF is built with both developers and users in mind. And I just love the fact that we can create repeatable metafields - it makes development smarter as you can code in the flexibility people will need. To be honest it’s not even a question as to which metafields app I’ll use. It’s always ACF. Nothing else I've used comes close in terms of flexibility.

Shop fields

We used Shop custom fields to define some custom swatch groups which are used on a product level to essentially bind products together with a pre-defined URL structure. Products that follow the defined url pattern are bound together with swatches and load via Ajax. Giving a seamless switch between complex products which break out of Shopify’s 3 option limit. Having custom fields at the shop level for some things makes sense for more efficient code. You may be tempted to put this stuff in the theme or hardcode it in but to me global shop fields make more sense - it’s future proof & ultimately less hassle.

Product fields

We used around 50 product custom fields to allow Custom Plugs to add the following to their product pages:

Subtitle for SEO
Custom text input for engraved products
Disabling/enabling of certain elements on the product template
Enabling file uploads on certain products with the help of Cloudinary for Ajax cart support
Adding video
Adding stock location data

Product fields are used extensively to customise product pages with using only one product template. Cleaner code with less confusion.

Collection fields

We used collection fields to allow Custom Plugs to do the following on their collection templates:

Defining collection image assets and data which represent the collection (globally). This allows data to be defined once and avoids locking it into a theme (which can change)
Defining hero images for each collection - with both mobile and desktop options with overlays etc. More granular control than Shopify’s native one image per collection
Defining additional SEO content
Defining FAQ’s in a FAQ schema markup

Collection fields are used to give greater content flexibility on the collection pages. e.g. if you look at the Plugs Collection you'll see one layout and on the Silicone Plugs another. This is all controlled by ACF fields.

Article fields

We used article fields to allow Custom Plugs to add custom hero content and products related to the article. Again - this gives Custom Plugs more control without the need to duplicate templates.

Overall Feedback on Accentuate Custom Fields

Accentuate Custom Fields allows us to create cleaner, faster themes that are easier for end users to update without the need for a developer. When set up properly, it gives merchants all the control they need with only one template for each content type. All the important data is stored store side rather than theme side - so is accessible everywhere and will be on future themes. ACF makes life simpler for us as a development team and our clients find it super easy to use. We install it on just about every site we work on.