Taxonomy Meta Box replaces the native WordPress taxonomy metabox on post edit screens with a faster, paginated, searchable version. Posts with hundreds or thousands of available terms become usable again, and you can create new terms inline without leaving the editor.
What this feature does
WordPress’s default metabox for hierarchical taxonomies (categories, custom hierarchical taxonomies) renders every term in a single scrollable list. On sites with thousands of terms (e-commerce, large blogs, news sites), the list becomes slow to load and almost impossible to navigate.
Taxonomy Meta Box replaces that list with a smarter UI:
The free version replaces the metabox for every public hierarchical taxonomy. Pro adds a Taxonomies picker so you can opt only specific taxonomies in (useful when you only have one giant taxonomy and want native behaviour for the rest).
How to enable it
- Open AdminEase › Taxonomies. Click AdminEase in the WordPress admin menu, then switch to the Taxonomies tab.
- Toggle Improved Taxonomy Meta Box on. On Pro, the taxonomies picker appears as a child field. Pick the taxonomies you want to upgrade.
- Save settings. Open any post in a covered post type. The native metabox for the affected taxonomies has been replaced with the improved version.
Settings reference
| Setting | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Improved Taxonomy Meta Box | Master switch. While on, AdminEase removes the native metabox and registers its own for every covered hierarchical taxonomy. | Off |
| Taxonomies Pro | Multi-select of taxonomies to upgrade. Empty means “all hierarchical taxonomies,” matching free behaviour. | All |
Using the metabox
Open any post in a covered post type. The taxonomy metabox in the right sidebar (or below the editor in the classic editor) now has:
- A search input at the top.
- The currently-assigned terms (already-ticked, always visible).
- A scrollable list of remaining terms with pagination.
- An Add new link to create a fresh term inline.
Tick or untick terms as usual. Searching narrows the list to matches as you type. Adding a new term opens a small inline form for the name and (for hierarchical taxonomies) the parent term.
What happens behind the scenes
AdminEase removes the native metabox using remove_meta_box() and registers its own with add_meta_box() for each covered taxonomy. The new metabox uses four AJAX endpoints: adminease_load_taxonomy_terms (paged listing), adminease_search_taxonomy_terms (search), adminease_create_taxonomy_term (inline term creation), and adminease_get_term_names (display already-assigned terms).
The list of taxonomies the metabox applies to is filterable via adminease_taxonomy_meta_box_taxonomies, which Pro uses internally to honour the picker.
Troubleshooting
The metabox looks the same as before
Three things to check: confirm the master switch is on; confirm the taxonomy is hierarchical (the metabox only replaces the hierarchical-style one, not the tag-cloud-style metabox used by non-hierarchical taxonomies); and on Pro, confirm the taxonomy is selected in the picker.
Search returns no results for a term I know exists
Search matches by term name and slug. It does not search inside term descriptions. Make sure the term name actually contains your search string.
I can’t add a new parent term inline
The inline create form lets you create child terms by selecting an existing parent. To create a new top-level term first, leave the parent dropdown set to “none.” If you need to create a deep hierarchy, do the parent first, then refresh the metabox to use the new parent in the next inline create.
A non-hierarchical taxonomy still uses the old UI
Expected. The improved metabox only applies to hierarchical taxonomies (categories and similar). Non-hierarchical taxonomies (tags) use a different WordPress UI that this feature doesn’t touch.