At last night’s WordPress Meetup, we looked at ways you can add meta boxes to your WordPress content. When the basic “chunks” of content aren’t enough (title, content, excerpt, category, tag), adding meta boxes is a great way to add those extra bits of information & are easier to work with than Custom Fields.
The first method was the plugin More Fields. Easy to use interface for creating boxes with all the different input types you might need. Pros: easy to use. Cons: easy for someone to mess up or uninstall.
The second method was using the Custom Meta Box code developed by Bill Erickson, Andrew Norcross & Jared Atchison. This code allows you to build meta boxes into your theme. Pros: no plugin to install, harder for someone to muck up after you’ve got it set ‘just right’. Cons: If you’re not comfortable editing your functions.php, this may be intimidating for you to work with.