Custom Fields

This guide explains how to output the value of a Joomla custom field and access other properties like its label, ID, or raw value using Smart Tags.

Article Custom Fields

To display the value of a custom field in an article, use:

{article.field.NAME}

Replace NAME with the name (not the label) of your custom field.

Example: If you have a custom field named favoriteColor:

{article.field.favoriteColor}

For more details, see the Article Smart Tag guide.

User Custom Fields

To display the value of a custom field from the current logged-in user, use:

{user.field.NAME}

Example:

{user.field.favoriteColor}

For more details, see the User Smart Tag guide.

Common Syntax and Field Properties

You can access additional properties of a custom field by appending the appropriate keyword after the field name.

Return Raw Value

A custom field has both a value and a raw value, which are different in most cases. To return the field's raw value, use:

{article.field.favoriteColor.rawvalue}

Return Field Label

To return the field's label, use:

{article.field.favoriteColor.label}

Return Field ID

To return the field's ID, use:

{article.field.favoriteColor.id}

Subform Fields

If you’re using a Subform field, you can access its content in various ways.

Let’s assume you have a Subform field named customers, with two nested fields: name and age.

Output All Subform Rows

{user.field.customers}

This returns all subform rows as a bullet list.

Output a Specific Row

{user.field.customers.rawvalue.0}

This returns all values from the first row (index 0).

Output a Specific Field from a Specific Row

{user.field.customers.rawvalue.0.age}

This returns the value of the age field in the first row.

Prevent Shortcodes Parsing

By default, Smart Tags prepare the output of custom fields, which means that shortcodes and content plugins inside a field’s value are executed. This can lead to issues such as:

• Plugins being unintentionally executed: For example, if the Email Cloak Plugin runs on a custom field value that contains an email address, it will replace it with JavaScript-based cloaking, which may not be desirable. Similarly, any shortcode in the field will be parsed and rendered.
• Special characters displayed incorrectly: Text fields containing umlauts or other accented characters may appear broken because the field layout echoes the value using htmlentities($value).

If you want to prevent this behavior and return the field value exactly as entered, you have two options:

1. Disable Smart Tags from preparing custom fields with the modifier:

{user.field.xxx --prepareCustomFields=false}

2. Output the raw field value instead of the prepared one:

{user.field.xxx.rawvalue}