Making custom fields required?

Hi all,

I’m creating my first custom theme which includes a special layout section for post and page summaries.

I tried using the built-in post excerpt feature, but was frustrated to discover that it (Gutenberg) generates its own HTML that I can’t easily modify (specifically a P tag), so it’s not usable for what I want to do.

I decided to create a custom field instead, and the editors will just have to manually fill this in. I used this page as a guide: https://www.ads-software.com/support/article/custom-fields/

My custom field is called “Summary”. How can I:
1. Restrict the number of characters editors can enter, and more importantly
2. How can I set this field to required so the editors don’t leave it blank?

I’ll be displaying the custom field as follows:

<?php 
	$post_id = get_the_ID();
	echo get_post_meta($post_id, 'Summary', true);
?>

But I don’t want it to be blank

• This topic was modified 2 years, 5 months ago by station7. Reason: fix code
• This topic was modified 2 years, 5 months ago by station7. Reason: Figured out how to get the current page ID