Sorry I was assuming you knew that the array was showing from what steve posted. Example step by step, starting from what Steve posted.

$meta = get_post_custom($post_id);
Then when you do the print_r you should see an array that looks something like you posted

Array (
    [mhs_pedigree] => Array ( [0] => a:3:{s:7:”spacer1″;s:0:”";s:7:”spacer2″;s:0:”";s:8:”mhs_c3-1″;s:10:”grand sire”;} )
)

So $meta is now equal to an associative array that contains the key ‘mhs_pedigree’. mhs_pedigree is equal to another array which the first value (0) is serialized data.

Basically what happens is when the data is saved by wordpress it takes your group piklist field, and creates and meta value, now for each field inside of that group it takes all of them as an array and runs php’s serialize function on them to create a single string of data. essinitally making your group field equal to a string.

Okay, back to how you can use this. You need to be able to access each field’s value back individually from your mhs_pedigree, so lets follow the array down to the serialized data and convert that back to an array of data you can use.

// Grab all of our custom post types
$meta = get_post_custom($post_id);

// turn mhs_pedigree into its own array.
$mhs_pedigree = unserialize($meta['mhs_pedigree'][0]);
print_r($mhs_pedigree);

now the printed screen values should show something along this line (based on your fields)

Array (
    [spacer1] => 'some_value',
    [spacer2] => 'some_value',
    [mhs_c3-1] => 'some_value
)

so to use those in your template then now you can user

<?php echo $mhs_pedigree['mhs_cs-1']; ?>

just note that i didn’t test anything, just trying to provide a rough example to explain what your seeing.

@txhorselady. If i’m taking the correctly you should be able to hook up a custom template with out a label, and then add it to your field. Here is an example.

In your functions.php add

add_filter('piklist_field_templates', 'add_piklist_field_templates');

function add_piklist_field_templates($templates)
{
	$templates['no_label'] = '[field_wrapper]
		                          <div id="%1$s" class="%2$s">
		                              [field_description_wrapper]
		                                  <small>[field_description]</small>
		                              [/field_description_wrapper]
		                              [field]
		                          </div>
	                          [/field_wrapper]';

	return $templates;
}

and then in your meta-box file

piklist('field', array(
    'type' => 'group'
    ,'field' => 'my_group'
    ,'add_more' => true
    ,'label' => ''
    ,'description' => ''
    ,'template' => 'no_label' // custom template to not add label wrap
    ,'fields' => array(
        array(
        	'type' => 'textarea'
        	,'field' => 'column_1'
        	,'label' => 'Column 1'
            ,'columns' => 6
        )
        ,array(
        	'type' => 'textarea'
        	,'field' => 'column_2'
        	,'label' => 'Column 2'
            ,'columns' => 6
        )
    )
));

@Steve, whats your code look like. I wrote it out pretty quickly to match a project i have missed documenting something.

Like I said its pretty quick and dirty… but for what i needed (getting an id of a post to use) it works well.

I’m def looking forward to seeing what the piklist guys come up with.

@Steve- Just curious if these changes made it into the most recent update v0.6.9 Not exactly sure when the update was release (i updated yesterday).

Thanks