[wp-hackers] front-page.php always overrides home.php?

[Chip Bennett]

All,

If a Theme defines both a "home.php" template file (for a custom "home" page
displaying Posts) and a "front-page.php" template file (for a custom "home"
page displaying a static Page), it appears that "front-page.php" will always
take precedence over "home.php":

Here's the definition of
is_front_page()<http://core.trac.wordpress.org/browser/tags/3.0.1/wp-includes/query.php#L353>
:

344     /**
345  * Whether current page query is the front of the site.
346  *
347  * @since 2.5.0
348  * @uses is_home()
349  * @uses get_option()
350  *
351  * @return bool True, if front of site.
352  */
353 function is_front_page() {
354         // most likely case
*355         if ( 'posts' == get_option('show_on_front') && is_home() )*
356                 return true;
357         elseif ( 'page' == get_option('show_on_front') &&
get_option('page_on_front') && is_page(get_option('page_on_front')) )
358                 return true;
359         else
360                 return false;
361 }

And then here's the relevant code from the template
loader<http://core.trac.wordpress.org/browser/trunk/wp-includes/template-loader.php#L21>
:

21 if ( defined('WP_USE_THEMES') && WP_USE_THEMES ) :
22         $template = false;
23         if     ( is_404()            && $template = get_404_template()
         ) :
24         elseif ( is_search()         && $template = get_search_template()
        ) :
25         elseif ( is_tax()            && $template =
get_taxonomy_template()       ) :
*26         elseif ( is_front_page()     && $template =
get_front_page_template()     ) :*
*27         elseif ( is_home()           && $template = get_home_template()
          ) :*
28         elseif ( is_attachment()     && $template =
get_attachment_template()     ) :
29                 remove_filter('the_content', 'prepend_attachment');
30         elseif ( is_single()         && $template = get_single_template()
        ) :
31         elseif ( is_page()           && $template = get_page_template()
        ) :
32         elseif ( is_category()       && $template =
get_category_template()       ) :
33         elseif ( is_tag()            && $template = get_tag_template()
         ) :
34         elseif ( is_author()         && $template = get_author_template()
        ) :
35         elseif ( is_date()           && $template = get_date_template()
        ) :
36         elseif ( is_archive()        && $template =
get_archive_template()        ) :
37         elseif ( is_comments_popup() && $template =
get_comments_popup_template() ) :
38         elseif ( is_paged()          && $template = get_paged_template()
         ) :
39         else :
40                 $template = get_index_template();
41         endif;
42         if ( $template = apply_filters( 'template_include', $template ) )
43                 include( $template );
44         return;
45 endif;

Is this the intended behavior? If so, it would seem to make the use of
"home.php" obsolete, since "front-page.php" covers both use cases.

(And sorry for the incredibly belated question. I know that "front-page.php"
has been around for a year. I've just never actually *used* it, so wasn't
aware of how it was defined/used by the template loader.)

Chip