What page templates would you like to see?

1. 

   Justin Tadlock (Key Master)
   Posted 3 years ago | Permalink

   One of the ways I'd like to extend the themes offered here is by packaging them or the child themes with new page templates.

   The only theme that has exclusive page templates right now is the Options theme. It has:

   no-sidebar.php
   blog.php
   archives.php

   Each of these extend the functionality of your site if needed. Of course, page templates can be made for anything.

   What are page templates?

   All PAGES (not posts) default to the Default Template (page.php), which is all fine and good until you need to do some more custom work but not mess up other pages.

   So, you create what we call a page template. Once you've created a page template, you can select it as the template for any page on your site. Now, that page will have different functionality (possibly a different style) than the rest of the site.

   For example, the Archives template with the Options theme shows an archive of your posts by month. However, with an archive plugin installed (Smart Archives or SRG Clean Archives), you'll have an even better archives page.

   But, we can do better. If we start thinking outside the box a bit, there might be some other great uses.

   What can we actually do with these things?

   Anything. It's basically a blank slate. You could set up image galleries, bookmark lists, or even implement popular plugins.

   One thing that I do not like to see (and I see this often) is turning pages into a category page. That's what category archives are for. Honestly, don't ask me to set up something like that. It's pointless and creates duplicate content on your blog.

   We do, however, have a three column page template tutorial here in the forums:
   http://themehybrid.com/support/topic/options-and-a-3-column-page

   It pulls posts from three different categories, which is kind of cool. Again, I'm not a huge fan of the category thing, but it can be neat if you have three categories to feature. Heck, you could even put other stuff in there besides categories.

   What I'd like to hear from you

   I'd like to hear some ideas!

   I already know what I'd use page templates for. What I don't know is what you'd use them for.

   One template I'd like to include in a few of the themes is an Authors template, which would create a list of all authors with biographical info and avatars. I have a tutorial on it:
   http://justintadlock.com/archives/2008/06/09/doing-more-with-gravatars-authors-template-page

   So, if you think you have a good idea for a page template (I hope something that would benefit many users), let us hear it.

2. 

   davek (Member)
   Posted 3 years ago | Permalink

   The Authors template would be fantastic.
   One template I am constantly surprised by the lack of is a Contact template, I know there are lots of plugins to do this but I don't think it should be a plugins job to provide what should be a pretty basic feature.

3. 

   Justin Tadlock (Key Master)
   Posted 3 years ago | Permalink

   I had actually thought about adding a contact template, but then I came across a great contact form plugin by the folks that made the Sandbox theme:
   http://www.plaintxt.org/experiments/easy-contact

   It's so easy to use, that it's almost pointless for theme authors to include their own. Plus, there's valid markup. What I'd like to do is add default styles for this form to get more people using it and list it as one of the supported plugins.

4. 

   davek (Member)
   Posted 3 years ago | Permalink

   Just trying it out now & it's pretty cool...thanks for the link.
   Adding default styles would be super, their Custom Field Widget also looks super handy, I know I'd definitely use it...
   I have been using the Search Everything plugin: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/search-everything/
   but it seems to crap out if you have many entries in your postmeta, I'm currently adding postcodes and so on as postmeta but because I have so many posts, the Search Everything plugin times out...
   Any suggestions for searching on a specific postmeta field?

5. 

   davek (Member)
   Posted 3 years ago | Permalink

   Just trying it out now & it's pretty cool...thanks for the link.
   Adding default styles would be super, their Custom Field Widget also looks super handy, I know I'd definitely use it...
   I have been using the Search Everything plugin: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/search-everything/
   but it seems to crap out if you have many entries in your postmeta, I'm currently adding postcodes and so on as postmeta but because I have so many posts, the Search Everything plugin times out...
   Any suggestions for searching on a specific postmeta field?

6. 

   davek (Member)
   Posted 3 years ago | Permalink

   The custom field widget wasn't exactly what I thought & you already have this function brilliantly covered, so please ignore that part...
   However, If you know of any easy way of searching by postmeta, I' dove to hear it...

7. 

   Craig (Member)
   Posted 3 years ago | Permalink

   I was thinking it would be neat to have the Archives page function like the home page, with the ability to "recreate" what the home page (Options) looked like for a particular month. For instance a community newsletter that publishes a monthly issue using Feature gallery, Gallery stream etc that represents that month.
   So when you would go to any monthly archive you would see exactly what that months issue looked like with feature images, video etc.

   Does that make sense? How would I start creating such a template?

   Thanks

8. 

   Matthias70 (Member)
   Posted 3 years ago | Permalink

   Hi Justin,
   I just created something like a statistic template
   http://www.gpaed.de/blog/statistik/

   Matthias

9. 

   Justin Tadlock (Key Master)
   Posted 3 years ago | Permalink

   What does it do? I can't seem to see anything that's not possible by using page.php. Of course, maybe I'm missing something.

10. 

    Matthias70 (Member)
    Posted 3 years ago | Permalink

    Hi Justin,
    I added the code from the plugins used in my blog to get all infos on one page
    recent comments
    most commented posts
    latest posts
    best rated posts
    most rated posts

    Dont know how to do that in page.php?

    Matthias

11. 

    computerpeach (Member)
    Posted 3 years ago | Permalink

    I would love to see a "no comment" Page - a page where comments and backtracks are not even allowed or shown (without the annoying "comments disabled" tagline).

    I also would love to see a Page index of sorts.

12. 

    Justin Tadlock (Key Master)
    Posted 3 years ago | Permalink

    computerpeach
    I somehow missed your reply.

    My latest theme (Hybrid) won't show the "comments disabled" line on Pages with comments/pings disabled.

    For those of you that don't follow my blog, we had a really good discussion on page templates recently:
    http://justintadlock.com/archives/2008/10/02/if-you-were-a-wordpress-theme-developer-page-templates

13. 

    davek (Member)
    Posted 3 years ago | Permalink

    Hi Justin,
    Would it be difficult to create a comments page template? - a page with only comments in date added order with a link back to the post that was commented on.
    The more comments I get, the more useful I think I'd find this page templete...

14. 

    Justin Tadlock (Key Master)
    Posted 3 years ago | Permalink

    I don't think it would be extremely hard, but I'm not sure.

    It's something that could potentially crash your reader's browser though. Imagine just displaying a few thousand comments on one page.

15. 

    davek (Member)
    Posted 3 years ago | Permalink

    I know, but if they could be paginated, it could solve the browser overload problem.

16. 

    Justin Tadlock (Key Master)
    Posted 3 years ago | Permalink

    Pagination is an entirely different story. I think the pagination for posts/pages is different from archive-based pagination because of the wp_link_pages() function.

    I wonder if there's a plugin for this. It would be easy to implement that

17. 

    kaethy (Member)
    Posted 3 years ago | Permalink

    I would like to see a page with no sidebars, and the content arranged in 2 or 3 columns.
    An archive page that could be sorted by alpha or by date.
    And category templates too!

18. 

    davek (Member)
    Posted 3 years ago | Permalink

    Hi Justin,
    On the pagination of comments on their own page template, just wondering if the functions wp_list_comments, previous_comments_link and next_comments_link could be used on this type of page template?

19. 

    Justin Tadlock (Key Master)
    Posted 3 years ago | Permalink

    That wouldn't be a page template because comments aren't a page, they're just handled with the comments template.

20. 

    kaiser (Member)
    Posted 3 years ago | Permalink

    i´d like to see the following template as addition to 2(l+r) and 3(l+r) and no-widget=no.sidebar layouts:

    LARGE image-posts via custom-fields based on 960 and/or blueprint-grid: single/2/3/4-column and 2/3/4-column+1widget-sidebar templates to get it compatible to portfolio- and magazine-style sites.

    this would really make this a complete package....

21. 

    Justin Tadlock (Key Master)
    Posted 3 years ago | Permalink

    LARGE image-posts via custom-fields based on 960 and/or blueprint-grid: single/2/3/4-column and 2/3/4-column+1widget-sidebar templates to get it compatible to portfolio- and magazine-style sites.

    I'm not sure I understand a single word of this. Could you please explain in simpler English?

    this would really make this a complete package....

    Make what a complete package?

22. 

    patty (Member)
    Posted 3 years ago | Permalink

    I would like to see any page template... sigh. Although all of the page templates that come with Visionary are installed, the drop down box in the Write Page admin panel does not list any of them, only "default template" is available in the list. I am having this problem with WP 2.6.3 on one site and 2.6.2 on another. I also have the same trouble with the Structure theme. If I switch to another theme I am able to select other page templates for that theme. Any ideas Justin? I love the Visionary and Structure themes and would love to get this working.

23. 

    Justin Tadlock (Key Master)
    Posted 3 years ago | Permalink

    Neither Structure nor Visionary come with any page templates other than the default.

    If you have particular support questions, you should ask those in the support forums though.

24. 

    patty (Member)
    Posted 3 years ago | Permalink

    Hmm, well that would explain it.

    Thanks Justin for your answer. As soon as I have a few extra bucks I'll join for support. Thanks again.

25. 

    skywolfyx1 (Member)
    Posted 3 years ago | Permalink

    hi, but i cant understand that how i can remove sidebar when the page is displayed like that forum page or about page can anybody explain me :(

26. 

    Justin Tadlock (Key Master)
    Posted 3 years ago | Permalink

    skywolfyx1
    Please ask support questions in the support forums:
    http://themehybrid.com/support

    This forum is only about sharing and discussing ideas.

27. 

    skywolfyx1 (Member)
    Posted 3 years ago | Permalink

    hi justin :( please forgive me because i take your time my stupidity. i found the title page template and i made what i want :( i am too sorry but i am happy :) take care and thank you so much just being there. maybe i will do for you man take care again :)

28. 

    Thomas Clausen (Member)
    Posted 3 years ago | Permalink

    You have made an awesome author temple, but what about a member/user template?

    It should probably be paginated above say 20 maybe. And I also think it only should be visible for logged in members.

    It would be just fantastic if users could segment on the different fields from the profile page. And this would be even cooler if this plugin idea about custom fields on the profile page would be something Justin would complement Hybrid with.

29. 

    Justin Tadlock (Key Master)
    Posted 3 years ago | Permalink

    I'll be adding the Profile page template in version 0.4 of Hybrid based off the work we've done.

    Each member is also already given a page by default with WordPress: /site-name.com/author/author-name.

30. 

    Thomas Clausen (Member)
    Posted 3 years ago | Permalink

    But isn't this just authors? I thought that all the users (subscribers in WP terms) of the site?

    I was thinking of a list of all the people on the site.

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