I have been using a lot of Custom Fields to make WordPress like a CMS, beyond simple posts and post meta. The admin area for adding new posts has little “widgetized” movable areas like the “categories”, “publish,” and “tags” boxes for instance. With Custom Fields, all are grouped under one “widget” with the same name.
Is there a way to break out the Custom Fields into their own “widget” boxes to rearrange the placement of the admin area?
You can create and position your own meta boxes via
add_meta_box. You can store the data as meta data behind the scenes but it will allow you to customize the UI in the admin screens.