Elementor: ACF Repeater Field Support

[jfranger]

Prerequisites

• [x] I have searched for similar features requests in both open and closed tickets and cannot find a duplicate.
• [x] The feature is still missing in the latest stable version of Elementor ( Elementor Pro. )

What problem is your feature request going to solve? Please describe.
The ACF Repeater field is an absolute most for building simple, clear and functional admin layouts for non-tech users. It helps create many types of lists without a predefined number of items and this is crucially missing.

Describe the solution you'd like
Simple support for the ACF Repeater field. Repeating blocks designed with Elementor. The flexible content field would also be great, but the Repeater field would help tons of us.

Describe alternatives you've considered
Creating blocks programmatically, the usual method with ACF, but making the output a shortcode and adding it to the design in Elementor. Clearly not a time saver when working with a page builder.

Additional context
That feature would help create more dynamic pages via your great tool. Non-tech users are light years away from being able to use a page builder so an ACF type of interface is still required for most of my projects. The drag'n'drop feature of the repeater field also makes it a breeze for them to update content. Please make this a high priority!! I'm a web dev, php developer and available to help for testing, feedback etc.

[m0rphee]

Isn't the repeater in the paid version of the ACF plugin ?

[jfranger]

Indeed it is. I bet you most developers who build websites with ACF use the Pro version. Their pricing model is very appealing (pay once, unlimited websites...) and I've been using it for nearly 10 years now (was a 25$ add-on before the Pro version).

[MPHood]

For now you can use Anywhere Elementor pro. This will make the repeater field work

[jfranger]

Thanks MPHood, I saw that before adding this suggestion. ACF + Elementor is such a great mix to keep a balance between formatted user input and rapid dev/design. I really hope the repeater field will be available natively within Elementor Pro so I don't have to rely on more external Pro plugins. I can wait a bit so hopefully the guys at Elementor and ACF will discuss about this and find a solution to make it work. That would be awesome!

[MPHood]

I definitly agree.

[seanvandermolen]

+1

[bainternet]

@jfranger @MPHood @m0rphee

How would you see that working?

[jfranger]

@bainternet

That's a good question. Perhaps make it possible to group different elements together (an image, heading, and text field for example) and use dynamic data from repeater fields within that group, and that group would then repeat with every iteration displaying dynamic content. But that could be complicated and involve pagination. Not sure. Or let us create custom templates with compatible repeating elements. That template part would then repeat when added to a page section. I can also think of the way we can create archive templates for custom post types for example. These are repeating blocks using a pre-set number of WP fields using a user-selected source and pagination. How to use that pattern with the Elementor code base for dynamic/repeating contents, that I'm not sure of bcse I'm not familiar enough with it.

I think there are many possible avenues (maybe even hybrid), but to keep it simple, flexible enough to make it work, and feasible would certainly help push this compatibility to Beta _somewhat_ easily. It could then expand and get better as time go by, because, IMHO, ACF Pro and Elementor Pro working together is the next best thing to build websites fast and clean (Elementor) and very user-friendly at user input with little tech knowledge (ACF). I've been developing websites using WordPress for over a decade now and to be able to integrate both plugins in most aspects of a project would be pretty powerful. Food for thought, a repeater within a repeater is also a pretty helpful classic. One way or another, repeating blocks are clearly part of most website contents at some point. I'm redoing a website now and it would definitely help on more than half the page templates including the home page.

So yeah, not sure about the technical solution, but I certainly can help test during the process if needed.

[seanvandermolen]

I'd like to see it implemented like a skin. For example, Elementor custom skin adds a new template category called loops. Would love to see that functionality included in Elementor/ PRO. Conditionally assigning loops or "skins" (I think is a better name) to archive posts or repeating ACF fields.

[MPHood]

Just take a look how "Anywhere Elementor" did it in their "AE - ACF Repeater" repeater Widget - It works perfectly fine.

[JordanKDesigns]

+1

[jfranger]

So.. this is still marked as _status/needs feedback_ -- do you need anymore feedback?

[VerdiH]

@bainternet have you read the response by @jfranger yet?

It's a lot of text, but basically, it would be awesome if Elementor Pro supported the repeater field so Elementor Anywhere is no longer needed for just having that function.

Consider this my upvote 👍

[srcek]

AnyWhere Elementor Pro developer does a great job filling in the gaps in Elementor Pro functionality. All of that should really be a part of the core Elementor Pro package. Buy the plugin and hire the developer. :)
But seriously, designing individual repeating blocks / loop items for ACF Repeater and Relationship or standard Posts widget and Archive Posts widget would be incredibly useful and open a whole new level of possibilities in the design.

[jfranger]

I finally decided to give a shot to AnyWhere Elementor. A nice Black Friday deal convinced me to stop postponing some projects I have on my table. I really was waiting for an Elementor Pro update that would support the ACF Repeater field, but time is ticking. I had an issue with AE tho, the repeater field didn't want to work as expected. So I contacted the developer who took time to help me. Their plugin is all fine, I had to setup Polylang correctly with it for some reason. That got fix by them in less than a day thanks to their commendable customer service, so I'm glad to report it here in case it can help.

[chimayko]

+1

Would love to have the ability to create an Elementor template and use ACF field calls for repeatable fields.

1. Drag ACF repeater widget > Dropdown to choose a template on settings.
2. This template could be of an specific "ACF Repeater" template type or a "Section" type from Elementor's template type list.
3. There you could build using any other basic widgets (from fields from ACF supported).
4. You have the ability to choose a Field Group from the dynamic link for a certain element.
5. Once a field group is chosen, you choose a field.
6. If it's a repeater field, another dropdown opens up and you choose the field you want to display.
7. Once published, this template show's up on #1 Drodpdown.
8. Elementor loops through the repeater field, repeating the template as many times as records are in there.

This would be similar to Pods Item List Widget and Pods templates (if only pods templates could be edited using elementor we'd have our problems solved :-) )

[richardmbakeretc]

As an alternative to ACF, I've tested including dynamic content with this plugin: https://jetengine.zemez.io/.
So far it has worked well, with a repeater. It also has a neat way of handling an image gallery as well.

[momo-fr]

Hi, do you think you can integrate ACF repeater support soon?

[teolaz]

+1

[sfausto]

+1

[aronmoshe-m]

I'd love to know where this feature is at in Elementor's dev list. If this is something coming soon, I may be able to work Elementor Pro into more of my upcoming sites. Without it, I really see Elementor Pro as a limited product.

[mcj777]

+1

[parfilov]

+1

[7ka]

+1

[CaptainGwen]

Hi, do you have some news about that? it would be really great if you integrate ACF Repeater to the next update..
+1

[pascal-parent-za]

Hi, I would love to see this for Toolset (and PODS) too and integrate into relationships to be able to use with a repeater where the repeater content can be a template like the way that Ele Custom Skin works.
https://www.eletemplator.com/ele-custom-skin/
This would a great addition with endless possibilities.

[artneo7]

+1

[black-eye]

+1

[cjmetacrawler]

+1

[mariusghitulescu]

+1 for this

[papilia]

+1

[VerdiH]

Wow, this one really is getting a lot of ❤️😄

[artneo7]

That's right @Ver3! I can't image how cool it will be to set repeater fields for clients in their custom panels. Really looking forward into this update – for me it's a game changer for Elementor!

[momo-fr]

Wait, wait, wait…

[VerdiH]

That's right @Ver3! I can't image how cool it will be to set repeater fields for clients in their custom panels. Really looking forward into this update – for me it's a game changer for Elementor!

My use case would be this (for when someone orders a classroom course):

• Create custom checkout form/page for Woo styled with Elementor.
• Buy for just one student OR let the customer add as much students to a class as they desire (using a repeater field)

Use case two:

• Trainer uses front end form to submit a blog post.
• Uses repeater field to add paragraphs (pre-styled using Elementor's Theme Builder functions)

Question for all: What would be your use case(s)?

[jgajera]

+1 and Pro user (of both Elementor and ACF)

[mikestopcontinues]

+1

[IT72PRO]

+1

[RubenWerdmuller]

+1

[Nimeshbrt]

+1

[erfan-ilyas]

Really need this! +1

[MafuraG]

+1

[nebaon]

Would love that also. One of the big things I miss in every pagebuilder as of now - and should be doable. UI-wise it could be a grid widget that can be customized in detail or a container for a global template to be put in that repeats itself with different content from custom post types, a repeater item, etc. Would be awesome - and frankly important.

[bentalgad]

+1 Please Please Please! I will clean my room :)

[binaryfire]

+1 for sure!

[darbaz]

+1, it is very essential to have the support for ACF functionality and specially ACF Nested Repeaters

[portanicolas]

+1, i would like this feature

[emeraldsama]

+1 for me as well. It's familiar for my end users to add events, locations, etc.

[petercostellocreative]

+1 I need this feature. I bought both elementor pro and ACF pro after reading your post under the assumption elementor was able to handle ACF repeater.

[bentalgad]

I Need it also :)

[fanny-peneau]

+1

[Bannerman]

+1 this would be excellent

[basherwp88]

+1

[wpsumo]

This is a core thing for dynamic content. Is this worked on or not? Many customers waiting for repeater and flexible support. Come on Elementor, please! :)

[kovou]

+1 really need it

[wpsumo]

Anyone tried if this workaround works for Elementor as well? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdU_miyYYoQ have not tried myself yet.

But for Elementor, this is how beaver builder do: https://kb.wpbeaverbuilder.com/article/461-use-acf-repeater-fields-themer but in Elementor of course should be integrated into the builder rather than raw HTML snippet and short codes.

[richardmbakeretc]

Just relinking to my reply with a workaround
https://github.com/elementor/elementor/issues/5979#issuecomment-447879104

[wpsumo]

@richardmbakeretc thanks but prefer to use ACF due to it's UI and options page and in general more stable product with more features. Jetengine includes too many bottlenecks and compatibility issues from crocoblock.

[MichaelDarko]

I would also love to see this implemented.

[richardmbakeretc]

@alriksson It could be used for just the repeater feature and ACF or something else for other dynamic pieces

[wpsumo]

@richardmbakeretc Yeah would be better if Elementor soon could look into this. over 60 comments on this thread. A hot topic but haven't seen any of them reply to this thread lately...?

[zestdigital-dev]

+1 really need it

[nicomaro]

+1

[Felipe-NS]

+1

[joecodino]

+1

[smalonso]

+1 It's an important this feature

[farninger]

+1 Yes, sooo wanted!

[DavHobbs]

+1 this would be very useful

[sbc640964]

+1 | Waiting for development with impatience. (:+1:

[RubenWerdmuller]

Any news regarding this feature? Opinions from the development team?

[wpsumo]

Great news guys! I've helped and pushed for the developers to sort this and they just released ACF integration and literally 30min ago repeater support.

Flexible seems to be too complicated do integrate at this point. But hope this helps more users, and no more hide/show hacks when empty.

https://wordpress.org/plugins/unlimited-elements-for-elementor/

[augustoms]

It's really great @alriksson! Thanks!

One more thing about the integration with ACF: do you know something about dynamic conditions based on custom fields? Can we expect a native support in elementor or the best way is to continue using the DynamicConditions plugin?

[bentalgad]

@alriksson thanks for the update, but i really don't think this is the place for that update. we have a lot of missing features in Elementor and for every one of that features someone suggests a 3rd party plugin, so we might end with 30 plugins just to have some missing features in elementor and that's not our goal. the goal of that issue is to have this feature added to Elementor so we won't have to use hacks, customised code, plugins or so...

[jgajera]

Just to be clear... @alriksson 's post isn't referring to the official Elementor plugin, correct? He's talking about an Elementor extension plugin adding ACF Repeater support? The official Elementor plugin hasn't been updated in 15+ days.

[bentalgad]

@jgajera correct. no Elementor update (and no ACF repeaters yet :)

[MarcMurrayUpfront]

Just commenting to mention that I am really surprised this hasn't been implemented yet! Plugins like Ele custom skin and Anywhere Elementor Pro are pieces of functionality that really should be in the core.
This makes something as simple as a dynamic FAQ section a bit of a farcical series of workarounds.

[wpsumo]

But the support in unlimited is great. Easier to adjust in code than click x10 to connect in the page builder. Suits me very well, can even strip away some nested divs.

Repeater field cut the corners and is an amazing feature. Instead of connecting so many fields and cater for all scenarios their repeater fields. Save me so much time and work. In general, I would stop from using other extensions repeater support just because elementor might someday implement. It can be 1 week it can be 1year.

@MarcMurrayUpfront Yes agree there are many things missing in elementor core, but what can we do more than keep on fighting.

[LRA1]

+1

[piotr-wasilewski]

+1

[ninawannado]

+1 This would be awesome

[ayhanmalkoc]

+1

For this you need: acf slider dynamic background image Use full screen slider background with acf. How do I do it without the plugin?

[zorca]

+1

[erfan-ilyas]

+1 and as @ayhanmalkoc said dynamic slider images will be great!

[rdytogokev]

+1

[bentalgad]

Wow, Oxyqen 3 will have a "loop designer" which is visual (page builder) builder for any kind of loop (posts, acf repeater, anything!!!) that should be the solution in Elementor also!

You have to see:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZCeVLpZ8is (11:53)

[wpsumo]

@bentalgad wow, and even look how much better they integrate it with gutenberg blocks is. In elementor you have to load one block and template and can only change the content within elementor.

It should be building the template in elementor and then you can select the blocks in gutenberg. And then edit the content of the block in gutenberg.

Oxygen 3 is really taking a step ahead. Less convenient UX and extra addons than Elementor offers. But their way of load and style things with fewer divs/DOM elements using flex and code is so much better than Elementor. If we just could take elementor and oxygen and combine it I would say WOW.

[legshooter]

Just bought Elementor Pro and didn't even consider the possibility that it doesn't support the repeater. This makes it mainly an LP designing tool rather than a theme / website one. Now I'm kinda stuck with my project though, would love the to hear Elementor devs/product shed some light on future plans for this...

[Nimeshbrt]

Just bought Elementor Pro and didn't even consider the possibility that it doesn't support the repeater. This makes it mainly an LP designing tool rather than a theme / website one. Now I'm kinda stuck with my project though, would love the to hear Elementor devs/product shed some light on future plans for this...

Exactly, It has been so long since we have heard from Developers. We Badly Need this on Elementor. Please Put some light on it.

[Bovelett]

After struggling for two days, beginning to think maybe I'm too stupid to create a post type with that displays repeating fields, I only now discovered that Elementor Pro doesn't support the ACF repeater field. This renders the Elementor plugin absolutely useless to me. The said ACF Pro support was what made me buy it in the first place. I feel cheated on... really. Especially since none of the developers say anything about it here.

UPDATE - August 15, 2019
I managed to find a workaround by learning how to create my own shortcode which displays output from the Repeater Field. However, being PHP illiterate, it took me days to figure out how to do that. In my previous statement I was not saying Elementor Pro is useless. The fact that it costs me so much time is what hurts, as I bought the pro version to save on development time.

[wagnerch1981]

+1

[alulu17]

+1

[p3k1n0]

Same problem, here, as a many other people in this post. I've created a custom post type, the article prototype for a news section, and I need to inlcude a repeater to allow the upload of one or more files (pdf, doc, etc.) that should be downloadable from the post. For each file, the display text for the download link should be customizable.
I admit, that my hopes of a quick solution oscillates.... I followed the last months of the Font Awesome update issue, the requested update from version 4 to version 5, and... that was a quite big issue, with A LOT of requests. But it took more than a year to be solved. Sure, the solution that the Elementor guys brought us was more than a simple icon set update, but nonetheless.... it took more than a year.

[jess8bit]

+1 need this so hard... frustrating!

[shisan79]

+1

[anouarkacem]

+1

[tictok]

+1

Purchased Elementor Pro to evaluate for future projects. First project would be update of a Woo store for a client later this year. We use a lot of additional content on the single product pages. Without ACF Repeater (or ideally flexible content - appreciate the technical difficulty with that though) I'm not sure Elementor Pro will fit my clients or my own needs.

[formgarten]

I think it is urgent that all widgets with multiple items can be fully dynamically linked to ACF. Especially important is the use of the repeater fields of the Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) to dynamically create the number of contained items. These functions would be important to: slider, pricelist, media carousel, testimonial carousel, reviews.

[vijayp4you]

IS elementor going to support acf repeater field in dynamic content near term????????

[formgarten]

No. I think for lots of people acf repeater fields and acf relationship support is highly recommended. There're plugins who expand elementor with that functionality, for e.g. anywhere elementor or dynamic.ooo

[alulu17]

Hi, for anyone still waiting for the dynamic repeater field for elementor to support,
jet engine has it check this site (this is not affiliate link)
https://crocoblock.com/plugins/jetengine/

[formgarten]

Or this here also (not affiliate links also):

Anywhere Elementor Pro: https://www.elementoraddons.com/anywhere-elementor-pro/
Dynamic Content for Elementor: https://www.dynamic.ooo

[formulaclick]

+1

[vijayp4you]

Those anywhere elementer pro, dynamic OOO have limited uses of acf repeater. If elementer add it to dynamic fields. It uses are unlimited.

[Bobolinos]

+1

[shirokoweb]

Hi @shilo-ey
Is there any update on this highly requested feature ? Can we expect see it available any soon ?
To me, it's a must have for building advanced websites without the need for any additional crappy commercial extensions I've seen suggested here which add bloat and unnecessary resources where speed and performance matters, especially for SEO and conversions.
Thanks in advance for your "update" on this thread.

[ocbroadband]

Yes, this is a need. Having to purchase multiple plugins to support shortcomings isn't conducive to really immersing oneself into projects deeply using Elementor. I think as a top builder, when support is put out for a dynamic plugin that a MASSIVE amount of people use, full support for all the field types should be implemented, not a subset, especially repeater fields. Really wishing for this one to happen ASAP.

[lucafagherazzi]

Would be appreciated, thanks!

[bartvanoers]

+1, same for Toolset

[Faremir]

+1 This is needed for any complicated structure.

[notechup]

+1

[elasticeye]

I really hope this will work with all widget that contains multiple items like ICONLIST, PRICELIST, CAROUSEL ETC... that would be awesome!
So in the backend in the repeater value, I can type in let's say:
apples
pears
oranges

and then I can connect these to I.E the ICONLIST dynamically and it will be auto populated based on these values.

[ocbroadband]

Approaching 2yr mark for this request of which this should be a fairly high priority IMO. Can some insight please be provided on when this will be implemented.

[kovou]

+1

[marcel2008]

desperately in need of this feature. Are there any news or workarounds without the need of paid plugins just to handle the single feature??

[shirokoweb]

webdevelopers ≠ #webdesigners

Developer requests are being ignored, they focus on so called "designers".

Look at what features have been picked up to celebrate the 4M active installs:
17,628 votes in total (not even a 1/3 of Facebook group which has +60k members):

• 7,311 for steps forms
• 3,900 votes for Lottie
• 3,846 for lead collection
• 2,571 for Instagram

It clearly shows that nobody cares about high candy and useless stuff. So why being so close minded and not focus on real improvements rather than more bloat layers ?

[wagnerch1981]

I needed this feature for a couple of my projects. I worked with the elementor extension of dynamic.ooo. Worked absolutely fine for me and the price for a lifetime license is absolutly reasonable. https://www.dynamic.ooo/widget/acf-repeater-fields/

[mrbenjaminjo]

Even Elementor thinks we should use Oxygen if we want repeaters.

[mrbenjaminjo]

We're sick of repeater'ing ourselves.

[cngohar]

+1 from me

[andyinsweden]

I'm hoping that the developers are reading this long thread of requests from people who are crying out for this feature. Yes, we all bought ACF, we bought Elementor Pro. We know that we don't want any more 3rd party plugins to subscribe to for this feature. And most of all, we need this feature for our clients.

Our clients want to do it themselves and that's why they pay us for solutions.

Come on Elementor developers - give us the feature we want. Beaver Builder can do it all - that's a big competitor to lose to and I'm sure you wouldn't want to lose the thousands of ACF users to another platform!

[membus]

+1
I'm diving into the ACF thing newly and cannot believe that Elementor still won't allow the use of repeater fields or other advanced fields to be used, while 3rd party plugins support this already.

[mymlen]

Yup, need this feature in almost every project now-a-days.

[PPjev]

I think it would be nice at least for elementor pro to support repeater field created by ACF, to output its values. At the moment, another plugin is needed for that too, but for sure could be supported by elementor pro :)

[MichaelDarko]

The lack of support for the Repeater field might seem like a small issue, but what does it tell us about Elementor's long-term strategy? Does Elementor even want to be a tool for building complex websites, or did they just give up on that and will leave this to 3rd party plugins?

Have you guys seen JetEngine from CrocoBlock?

I've been using it for some time now and I'm still stunned how amazing and powerful this thing is. It takes some time to master all the features, but you can build insanely complex stuff with it without touching any code. Feels like magic.

I don't really know how we got to a situation where we have 3rd party solutions like JetEngine giving us so much powerfull features, while Elementor itself can't do anything close to that. When working with JetEngine it almost feels like Elementor is an addon and JetEngine is the core tool. It literally makes Elementor 90% more powerful. It's a pretty strange situation.

If you build websites, you can't live without custom posts and custom fields. Supporting ACF and CPT plugins is cool, but Elementor shouldn't rely on them. I think the strategy should shift to giving us an interface to create custom post types and meta fields directly in Elementor admin.

Elementor team shoud basically look at the JetEngine plugin and give us similar functionality in the core.

All you need is this:

1. Create new post type
2. Add different meta fields for that post type
3. Design listing widget/archive/single for that post type

All seamlessly incorporated into the Elementor experience.

No messing around with other plugins, Elementor should take care of it.

Through first principles thinking, it almost seems that creating post types and meta fileds would be the first thing you would do when developing a page builder. But because WordPress only has "blog posts" by default, we are stuck with this, and for anything else you have to use multiple plugins, hope that Elementor will support what you want to do and the whole process is a mess.

I don't see many people talking about this, but i think we should start demanding that Elementor became an ultimate tool for creating all kinds of websites.

JetEngine saw the massive need for this and they came up with a great tool. Surely, Elementor should do the same. If this is not in the plans, what is the future of Elementor? Visual builder for simple sites? There's a ton of them.

My whole proposal is here: #11126

I hope Elementor understand's how important this is.

I've built close to 150 websites with Elementor, that's why I'm so passionate about this. When I look at what the pople at CrocoBlock (JetEngine etc.) are doing, I get the sense they know exactly what people like me need to do their job. I love Elementor, it is a great tool and (probably) still the best page builder, but I constantly feel like Elementor is trying to outsmart us by giving us a lot of stuff nobody asked for, doing great marketing, and mostly ignoring the real "boring" needs that I see here requested over and over.

The general sentiment in the whole Elementor Github is frustration and I think it means something.

[IntownWebPros]

Another +1. I cannot believe we are being ignored. This is my first year with the Pro version. It's nice but, without ACF repeater, it really does not meet my needs. It's a big enough gap that I do not anticipate renewing. It's just not worth it for all the add-ons that have to be juggled. Not only do I have to deal with those, any clients that want to do the minor keep up themselves also have to figure out all these different plugins. I may as well code the whole thing myself.

[Chertii]

One more +1.

[luca8link]

+1. This is very much needed

[rajivsingha]

I just wrote to their support asking why ACF repeater was working earlier and suddenly stopped working. Not sure but I think I was able to fetch dynamic repeater data for a moment. Not working anymore.

I can't believe they have not even cared to respond here in what seems like ever.

Can't we all do something about this guys? I don't wish to spend another $50 or so another plugin for one feature that should have been present in the first place.

Should we take this up on Twitter with them?

[Nimeshbrt]

@rajivsingha Let's do it. They are not caring to respond us.

[rajivsingha]

@rajivsingha Let's do it. They are not caring to respond to us.

I already tried - https://twitter.com/rajiv_singha/status/1271822683596972032

No use unless the entire community tweets and requests them to prioritize this.

[moshepollak]

+++1

[barrycrous]

+1

[ServusNL]

+1

[Sammilynn]

+1

[nickelnext]

Ele custom skin provides a perfect integration.

If in the ELEMENTOR the developers would just implement the same functionality that the POSTS Widget has (with the ability to for ELE CUSTOM SKIN to hook in) also for accordions, we could build FAQs by using a cpt with two fields (question, answer), design the skin via ele-custom-skin, and hook it inside the Accordion widget

[Overbord]

+1 for this

[ocbroadband]

2+ years now, and not a single response from ANYONE at Elementor. Even just to say, no, we're not doing it, or its on the list and targeted for x/x/x date to begin dev. Nothing. A little honesty and transparency goes a long way Elementor. Something yet to be learned I guess. I honestly can't believe this isn't something that was already done MANY MANY months ago. #smh #disappointed