Say I have a tech blog, how best would I store technical specs for a phone, if i use custom post types

Question

I've been playing around with WordPress for a couple of months now and when a client requests that he/she be allowed to modify, add content without my intervention, my defacto standard is WordPress. I've found WP to be extremely transparent and flexible compared to other CMS I've experimented with.

Say I have a phone review website and I use custom post types to list the phones. I'm assuming this is one of intended applications of custom post types, and I would like your suggestions on how best to store the technical specifications of the phone.

Here's an example http://www.theverge.com/products/xperia-acro-s/5697

Click on Full specs and this is an approximate picture of what I'm trying to achieve.

My question is 1) Should I use custom fields ( post meta ) for every single specification? This would mean at least 25 custom fields (Screen size, processor,display and so on..) for each custom post ( here, the phone).

2) Have a separate table in the wordpress database with fields as the tech spec (Screen size, processor,display and so on..)

In addition to display the tech specs every for every phone, I would also like it implement a 'Compare' feature as well as search for a phone based on the spec. Which of the above methods would you suggest for optimum performance during 'compare' or 'search' ?

Thanks for your time.

Answer 1

i would go with custom post types with custom fields for each type. This will allow you or your client a super simple way to add, edit, delete, etc fields of each phone or the phone in general from your WP install.

If you don't feel like programming it, i have used a couple plugins
1. for defining custom types
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/more-types/
2. for adding custom fields to not only the custom type you created but also posts, pages, etc. http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/more-fields/

Once you are set up it would not be hard to compare or search the fields to do what you need with the compare and/or search. Some simple custom programming would be needed.