I am a beginner at WP, I need some ideas on how to proceed with the following problem:

I need to create a tool that will build a database for a client's WordPress site. The database surrounds authors of old literary texts and the information related to them(name, bio, education, etc.). The data relating to each author is quite extensive.

I need to store these data entries in a database on the website, these entries should be able to be queried and displayed for the user searching through the database.

I have thought of using a form plugin for this, however, i am not sure if that i the right approach.

I am a beginner at WP, I need some ideas on how to proceed with the following problem:

I need to create a tool that will build a database for a client's WordPress site. The database surrounds authors of old literary texts and the information related to them(name, bio, education, etc.). The data relating to each author is quite extensive.

I need to store these data entries in a database on the website, these entries should be able to be queried and displayed for the user searching through the database.

I have thought of using a form plugin for this, however, i am not sure if that i the right approach.

• plugins
• custom-taxonomy
• database
• forms

• are you asking for plugin recommendations? You need to ask a specific question that you can mark an answer as the factually correct answer for all people with this question. If you're asking for recommendations or just wanting to have a discussion then this isn't the place to ask. – Tom J Nowell ♦ Commented Mar 17, 2022 at 22:40

1 Answer 1

WordPress natively stores content in a database. It sounds like you're wanting to store info in that database, and retrieve and present it - rather than actually create a separate database.

If that's the case, creating custom post types are likely the way to go. An author can be a custom post type, which would allow visitors to browse or search through authors. Their name would simply be the post title. You can add custom taxonomies where appropriate - for example, a genre taxonomy might make sense, so you can easily query all authors who write Science Fiction, for example. You can also add custom postmeta, such as education and bio, if you want to be able to search/filter through that information. If you go the custom taxonomy and/or postmeta route, you'll likely end up wanting to create a child theme, so that you can set up an Archive for the authors where visitors can sort and filter by different criteria.

Or, you could keep it simpler, and just place each author's information inside the post_content itself. WP will natively search through post titles and post content when returning search results, and of course as visitors view each single author URL, they would be able to view all that data without any customization of the theme or content output.