Tiger Dynamic Meta is a single-value dynamic-data widget: pick one piece of information about the current post, term, or WooCommerce product, then wrap it in optional icons, before/after text, and a link — all from one control panel instead of hard-coding template markup. It exists so that theme-builder templates (single post, archive, product loop) can pull a piece of live data — a date, an author name, a custom field, a price — without needing a dedicated widget for every possible fact. Because it implements is_dynamic_content() as true, Elementor bypasses its static cache for the widget, which is what makes it behave correctly inside Tiger’s Loop/theme-builder context where each iteration must render a different post’s data rather than a cached first result.
Setting it up
Everything starts with the Select Meta Type control in the “Meta Data Settings” section, which is grouped into three families: General Post Data (Post ID, Post Date, Author Name, Estimated Reading Time, Custom Field), WooCommerce Data (Product Price, All Attributes, Shipping Class), and Archive / Term Data (Term / Category Name, Term Taxonomy Type). Selecting one of these determines what the rest of the panel shows.
When Custom Field is selected, two source controls appear: CPT Builder Field, a dropdown populated from fields created in Tiger’s CPT Builder, and Or custom meta key, a free-text field for any meta key from ACF, Meta Box, or plain post_meta — this text field overrides the dropdown whenever it’s filled in. A Filter / Callback dropdown then lets you transform the raw value: number formatting with a Decimals control, Multiply By (for unit conversions), Currency (routes through wc_price() when WooCommerce is active), human file size, date formatting (its own PHP date-format field), word trimming, upper/lower/Capitalize Each Word case changes, a Switch / Map control mapping raw values to display text line-by-line (“1 : In stock”), item counting for comma-separated or array values, Post ID → linked title, and User ID → display name. A Hide if Empty switcher suppresses the entire widget output — icons and affixes included — when the resolved field is blank, stronger than a simple fallback because it removes the wrapper entirely rather than showing empty decoration.
For Post Date specifically, a Date Format select offers Default (site format), three explicit formats, or Human Readable (e.g. “2 days ago” via human_time_diff()). A separate top-level Link to Source switcher makes the whole meta value clickable using what the widget calls a “Smart Link”: terms link to their archive, author links to the author’s post listing, and date or reading time link to the current post. Below that, Fallback Text (dynamic-tag enabled, defaulting to “N/A”) is what displays when the requested data resolves empty for any meta type — not just custom fields.
The “Before & After” section adds Icon Before, Before Text, After Text, and Icon After controls so you can build something like a calendar icon plus “Published: ” plus the date, entirely from options, without a separate icon widget.
Non-obvious behavior worth knowing
Term / Category Name and Term Taxonomy Type don’t just read one hard-coded taxonomy — the widget checks whether you’re viewing an archive page directly and, if so, uses the queried term; otherwise it calls get_post_taxonomies() for the post’s own type and grabs the first term returned by wp_get_object_terms(). That makes it usable on any custom post type’s taxonomy with zero configuration, but it also means you have no control over which term shows when a post has several — whichever the query returns first. Reading Time is a plain average-speed estimate: word count from wp_strip_all_tags() divided by 200 words per minute, rounded up, with no reading-speed setting. Inside the Elementor editor, if the current post type is tiger_template and the value resolves empty, the widget substitutes “Dynamic Data Preview” text so templates never look broken while editing.
When to use this vs. a related widget
Reach for Tiger Post Terms instead when you need to display multiple taxonomy terms (not just one), with pill/tag layout options, per-term styling states, a configurable separator, and term-count/limit/exclude controls — Dynamic Meta’s term support is a single primary term with no list controls at all. Reach for Tiger Author Box instead of Dynamic Meta’s “Author Name” option when you need more than a name string: avatar, biography with word limit, a “more posts” link, website link, and a social-links repeater. Dynamic Meta’s Author Name meta type is deliberately minimal — just the display name, optionally linked to the author archive — appropriate for a compact byline sitting next to a date or category, not a full author card.
Practical tips
- Use Switch / Map to translate raw stored values (a numeric stock status, a short code) into readable labels without touching the database — one “stored : displayed” pair per line; anything not listed passes through unchanged.
- If a custom field can legitimately be empty and you don’t want stray icons or affixes left dangling, turn on Hide if Empty rather than relying on Fallback Text — Fallback Text still renders icons/affixes around the substitute text, while Hide if Empty removes the whole wrapper.
- On product pages, prefer the WooCommerce Data group’s Product Price over a custom-field lookup on a price meta key — it calls
get_price_html(), which already accounts for sale pricing instead of a raw stored number. - Because Or custom meta key silently overrides the CPT Builder Field dropdown whenever it’s non-empty, clear that text field explicitly if you switch back to a CPT Builder field after having typed a manual key.