Can we use this application during Shopify Trial?

During your free Shopify trial, if you'd like to add any paid app, you must enter a credit card number into Shopify if you haven't already. If you try to install the Custom Fields app during the free Shopify trial, you'll be taken to a page in Shopify asking you to enter your credit card information. Custom Fields has nothing to do with this process and you will not be charged for our app until the end of the Custom Fields trial period.

You can work around this by setting up your store as a Development Store instead. You'll have to start from scratch with your Shopify setup, but the Custom Fields app is designed to support Development Stores. This means that you can set up Custom Fields exactly how you want it and take as long as you want to set it up without being charged for your Shopify store, or by Custom Fields! To learn more, visit here.



Where is my Data Stored?

Your field data, that is, the actual values you entered into the field for any product or other content, is stored in Shopify along with all of your other data. Specifically, the data is stored in Metafields, using a namespace particular to Custom Fields. This means that the values you enter into this app are available outside of the app, if you need them and have your own developers, using the Metafields API.

Your images added through this app are stored and served in an Amazon S3 bucket specific to this app. Amazon's S3 system is highly reliable and is widely used by enterprises.

Your field definitions are stored in the app. Definitions are just your settings for the field, like if it's an HTML field and what you called it. If, for any reason, the Custom Fields app "goes down" your data will not be lost and your customers and visitors will not be impacted.



Can My Customers Enter Information into Custom Fields?

Currently, no. Only store administrators can modify custom field data.



What are Metafields for Shopify?

Metafields is a native feature in Shopify. It is comparable to custom fields in other applications. You can store extra information about your products, variants, collections, orders, blogs, and shop. If you are reading this document and you are a store owner. Please note that this is intended to be used by Shopify designers and developers to extend the features of Shopify. Unless you have some knowledge of the templating system used by Shopify, metafields would not be something you have to create by yourselves. It is best to speak to a developer or designer about it.

Each metafield has the following attributes:

  • namespace: This is a technical term but it basically means a unique category name for your values. You can make it unique. For example, if you want to add more descriptions to your products. You can call the namespace extra-description. It is better not to use space in any of the attributes.
  • key: Describe what kind of information the value attribute stores.
  • value: The actual value you are storing.
  • value_type: Can be either string or integer. If you are storing text information in the value field, select string. If you are storing numbers in the value field, select integer.
  • Unfortunately, Shopify did not provide a UI to edit metafields assuming only developers or designers would need to use metafields. We have run into cases when clients would need to use metafields to enter data in shops that designers or developers created that utilizes metafields. Hulk Apps has created an application Master Metafields. You can install it from the Shopify app store by visiting here
  • Once you have installed the application, you can use it to find products and variants. You can then add metafields to either products or variants using the UI.
  • After you have created metafields, you would often use it in Shopify template files to display such information.
  • If you’ve added to a product a metafield with the following attributes to store extra descriptions for your products.
    • namespace: product
    • key: extra-description
    • value: This is the extra description for my product
    • value_type: string



On duplicating the products do metafields also duplicates?

If you duplicate a product, the metafields related to the product do not get duplicated.


What is the maximum size for the file/image upload option in Metafield?

Users can upload a file/image of 5mb size on max.



How many images can be uploaded at once in the Multiple Image type in Metafields?

Users can upload a maximum of 10 images in this Metafield type. And maximum size per image upload is 5mb.



Where is Metafields Database?

By default, your additional files and images are stored in Shopify's CDN and are stored using the Shopify and accessed through their API. So the presence of the metafields does not depend on the app. In fact, you can remove the app and all the metafields will still be there.

You can reinstall this app anytime you like and the metafields you created previously will be available for edition or deletion. No data will ever be lost.



What should I enter as the 'namespace' and 'key' attributes?

You should consider the 'key' attribute to be the primary name of the metafield. Regarding the 'namespace' attribute, a little more explanation is necessary. Because metafields were created by Shopify mainly for developer use, the 'namespace' attribute was provided to help prevent naming conflicts across multiple developers. For your purposes, think of the namespace attribute as a way to group similar or related metafields together. But if you are only using a few metafields, it's perfectly fine if you use the same namespace value for all of them. You can choose any word you want as long as it's less than 20 characters in length. If in doubt and you want a suggestion, just enter the word 'local' for the namespace value everywhere. That way when you want to display a metafield in one of your store's templates, the naming convention would be something like the below:

HTML {{ shop.metafields.local.myfieldname }} OR

HTML {{ product.metafields.local.anotherfieldname }}



Why can't I change the namespace, key, or type of a metafield once it contains values?

This is a restriction of the Shopify API to avoid some potentially serious problems.



What are custom objects?

Imagine that you want to display, inside all your products, a "brand" tab. This brand tab should give a bit of context about the maker of the product: its name, its logo, maybe a bit of history...

Before custom objects, you could simply create those fields into the product definition, maybe inside a "Brand" group to make it easier to organize. Then, you would go over your products, and you would duplicate the same information for all the products that share the same brand. If you have 10 or more products and realize you've made a typo... you're good to start again from zero, by doing the change as many times as you have products for this brand.

Custom objects are an elegant way to solve this issue by allowing you to create your own types, and then creating custom objects for those types. You can then relate those types to a product, article or collection. Now, if you find an error, you just need to edit the text once... and it will update it everywhere.



What could this app be used for?

Create an "author" type, with fields such as name, Twitter URL, Instagram profile, and a short bio. Then, add a relation to this type within your "Article" resource.

Create an "instruction" type, with fields such as description, manual PDF, washing temperature... Then, add a relation to this type within your "Product" resource.

Store customer "birth date" using string.



Field types supported?

When you create your metafields definitions, you can choose among different field types. Choosing the appropriate field type is important, as it will help the merchant to more easily edit fields later on. Here is a description of supported field types:

String (Free), integer (Free), Rich Text (Paid), Image (Paid), Multiple Images (Paid), File (Paid), Email (Paid), URL (Paid), Phone (Paid), Colour Picker (Paid) and Date Picker (Paid)



Can I include image in the metafield extension?

Yes, you can include an image in the metafield extension, this is a PRO feature in our application.



Can I group metafields that can be associated with one or more Shopify objects?

Currently not possible.



I created metafields with data using your app, so why are they not displaying on my storefront?

The Master Metafields app will allow you to create, manage, and add data to metafields in your store but makes no changes to your themes or templates on your behalf. To put the metafields you create to use in your themes, you will need to do so manually with some Liquid code in your templates, they will not automatically display or trigger any special functionality for your store. For reference, click here…



Need help?

Metafields by HulkApps is an app that requires changes to your Liquid files in order to work properly.

As a consequence, if you're not 100% confident with coding, or if you need some advanced usage of metafields, we highly recommend you to contact us, explaining to us what you really want.

This way, you will make sure that you do not break inadvertently the theme.

When you contact us, make sure to include as many details as possible about your needs, such as:

Which new information do you need (example: "alternative title for all my products", "short description for my products", "the main image for my pages"...).

Kind of data (for instance: "the alternative title is a short text of approximately 2 words", "the short description can contain a video and an image"...).

Where you want the information to appear in your product, article... pages.