Comments on: How To Create A Custom Page Template In WordPress

By: Hamish

Hamish — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 16:48:20 +0000

Don, This always happens to non-nerds like me: your advice: ‘WordPress provides a clever way to do this called Custom Page Templates. To create a WordPress Page Template, you’ll need to use your text editor. Go to the directory on your server where you installed WordPress, and then navigate to the directory of your theme.” – assumes that I know how to get to the directory on my server and then how to navigate to my ‘Theme”. I called GoDaddy to see if they could help me find that directory, and they told me that you were probably referring to those who host with WordPress. Is that right? If so – then what are the instructions for those who don’t?

Also – on Themes – I went through the whole thing and did ‘install’ and received confiration that it had installed – yet my site still looks like the bare-bones ‘wordpress’ blue banner with words on it. What do I have to do to make the theme show up? Many thanks, Hamish.

By: Don Campbell

Don Campbell — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 03:02:55 +0000

@River – thanks for the feedback, I appreciate it. Let me know when you get your DIY site up and running, I always like to see them.

@Gary – thank you; that means a lot! Welcome, and I welcome your feedback too – if there is anything else you would like to see videos or tutorials on just let me know!

By: Gary

Gary — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 06:30:22 +0000

Well, I must say Don….. I’m hooked.
Wish I’d found your site a long time ago. I’m a bit of a tweaker myself but the amount of time that takes when you’re experimenting every step of the way (well, almost) is considerable. You obviously have the technical skills to understand the code PLUS the knack of writing clear explanations.
Bravo.
I’ve subscribed to your weekly newsletter and will be looking out for each issue.
Gary

By: River

River — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 21:29:18 +0000

Don,
Just discovered all the information you have posted…I’m seriously $$ crunched and forced to a DIY creating my website and blog. If not so jammed I would pick up you website template…and probably will as personal finances improve…in the meantime, kudos to you for posting very helpful information!! And, also sorry, this is not the place for that but wanted to get it to you.
river
@riverrance

By: WordPress Custom Page Template with No Sidebars | The Expand2Web Blog

WordPress Custom Page Template with No Sidebars | The Expand2Web Blog — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 01:46:32 +0000

[...] WordPress custom page templates allow you to do this. I’ve shown how to do this in a previous post and video. But when you do this, all of your content for the page needs to be coded in HTML and [...]

By: m a r c o

m a r c o — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 04:45:26 +0000

How about plugins and addons for “static” WordPress created websites. Any suggestions? Most of the cool stuff out there is related to posts…

By: Don Campbell

Don Campbell — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 03:45:07 +0000

Hi Pat – thanks!
I can’t see the HTML you posted. Which theme are you using? Did you include the header in your custom page template?

By: Pat

Pat — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 00:01:51 +0000

Hi Don,

Excellent post.. You answered exactly what I needed to know…

For testing, I left the text as “Cover Page…” ,etc.. When I pull up the Home page, everything is as it should EXCEPT, the white background disappeared, and I simply have my text on a black ground…

When I tried to insert the following HTML:

The background doesn’t appear as white… Am I doing something wrong?

Thanks,

Pat

By: Andrea

Andrea — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 13:38:40 +0000

Follow-up with more info: When I change my Posts page (in Reading) to any page other than my current blog page, then go to the blog page, the template applies correctly. Is that what’s wrong? A Posts page won’t apply a custom page template?

By: Andrea

Andrea — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 13:27:21 +0000

Hi Don,

I’d like the blog page to have a different header than the other pages, so I created a custom page template (called “Blog Page”) that calls a custom blogheader.php (with the new image). I also registered a new sidebar just for the blog page with different widgets than those on my other pages and added the different widgets in the WP admin. In the Pages edit menu I selected the blog page to edit and applied the “Blog Page” template from the drop-down menu on the right. But it’s not working. The blog page still looks the same as all the others. I’ve tried creating other completely new templates (all of which show up in the drop-down correctly) and applying them, but the pages are still using the default no matter what. What am I missing?

Thanks so much…