[wp-hackers] the home.php problem: does it asks for a posts.php ?

Tue Aug 28 19:11:13 UTC 2012

As a theme developer, what Im looking for is a way to force what will be
displayed in the front page and where the visitor will find the blog.

It's not the purpose of the *Theme* to dictate what is displayed on the
front page. That is a decision for the end user, and the end user alone.

Are there ways to improve the UX with respect to that front-page selection?
Sure. And such improvements are already under discussion (cf. the Trac
ticket John linked). But I am an adamant proponent of Themes remaining
within their functional scope: that is to *present* content, not to
*define* or *manage* content or site options (including whether the front
page should display the blog posts index or static content).

side note: according to you guys this page shoulbe be banned from the
codex:
http://codex.wordpress.org/Making_Your_Blog_Appear_in_a_Non-Root_Folder

The current version of that Codex entry is just shy of three years old.
That's bound to happen in a community/volunteer-maintained Codex. *Banned*
from the Codex? No; it merely needs to be updated to reflect current best
practices, such as the use of the pre_get_posts filter instead of
query_posts(), and (more importantly) to reflect current WordPress UX. In
all honesty, that Codex entry likely not even *needed* anymore, as
assigning the blog posts index to a static Page named "blog" is all that is
required to accomplish the purpose of that entry.

Regards,

Chip

On Mon, Aug 27, 2012 at 5:15 PM, Leo germani <leogermani at gmail.com> wrote:

> Yes, I see the root fo the confusion now.
>
> Sometimes I just think that those optinos in the readin panel are dangerous
> for the user. I dont want to have a dummy page called "blog" to list my
> blog posts. The user can accidentally delete this page and break the site.
> or tweak that option...
>
> As a theme developer, what Im looking for is a way to force what will be
> displayed in the front page and where the visitor will find the blog.
>
> If I write a front-page.php file and access the root of my site. I have
> whatever I want there, despite of what is selected on the reading settings.
> But then I dont have a URL to acccess my blog... see?
>
> I could make a custom rewrite rule, Ive done it sometimes, but I just
> though I would bring this up here cause its seems something lots of people
> want to do and that should have a better support. But I understand now that
> we can not do somethig thar ignores the reading settings...
>
> hmmm...
>
> side note: according to you guys this page shoulbe be banned from the
> codex:
> http://codex.wordpress.org/Making_Your_Blog_Appear_in_a_Non-Root_Folder
>
> Leo,,
> On Mon, Aug 27, 2012 at 7:06 PM, Justin Tadlock <justin at justintadlock.com
> >wrote:
>
> > Not necessarily.  You could always set up custom rewrite rules. It's just
> > easier to do it through the reading settings.
> >
> > You don't need a page template for it though.  Actually, I don't think
> you
> > can even use a page template at all anyway.  WP will automatically use
> > "home.php" or, if it doesn't exist, fall back to "index.php".
> >
> >
> > On 8/27/2012 5:00 PM, Leo germani wrote:
> >
> >> I actually forgot to ask in my email if I was missing something huge
> here.
> >> But beleive me, I see a lot of people running into the same problem.
> >>
> >> I understand the difference between home.php and front-page.php better
> >> now,
> >> but the question that brought me here is: if I have a front-page.php
> file
> >> in my theme, what link my visitor will have to access to see my latests
> >> posts? Does it have necessarily to be done through the Reading options
> and
> >> setting up a page template?
> >>
> >> Leo,,
> >>
> >> On Mon, Aug 27, 2012 at 6:32 PM, Justin Tadlock <
> justin at justintadlock.com
> >> >**wrote:
> >>
> >>  I think you're just getting confused with the "home" and "front page"
> >>> terminology a bit.
> >>>
> >>> home.php is your blog posts template (i.e., your 'post' post type
> >>> archive). It's always used when is_home() is true, even if this is not
> >>> the
> >>> front page of your site.  You should never "put anything you want in
> >>> there"
> >>> with this template.  It's for showing your blog posts.
> >>>
> >>> front-page.php is to override anything shown on the front page of the
> >>> site, regardless of any other settings.
> >>>
> >>> Maybe that helps explain it a bit.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> On 8/27/2012 4:11 PM, Leo germani wrote:
> >>>
> >>>  Hi all,
> >>>>
> >>>> Imagine you create a home.php or front-page.php template in your
> theme.
> >>>>
> >>>> Ok, now the visitor sees this template when visiting your sites front
> >>>> page.
> >>>> You can put anything you want there, in a template totally different
> >>>> from
> >>>> the blog template. Cool.
> >>>>
> >>>> Now you want to have a link to the lists of posts of your site, right?
> >>>> Of
> >>>> course it should be easy. But here you get in a weird situation with
> no
> >>>> good solution so far.
> >>>>
> >>>> Solution 1 - Page template
> >>>>
> >>>> You create a page template, with a simple code that executes
> >>>> query_posts()
> >>>> and load your index.php.
> >>>>
> >>>> This is not a good solution for at least 2 reasons. First,
> body_class()
> >>>> does not work well in this situation. Second, it requires the user to
> >>>> create the page and assign the template, this means he/she can break
> the
> >>>> site if this page is edited or deleted
> >>>>
> >>>> Solution 2 - Use the Reading settings as usual, and create 2 page
> >>>> templates. In this case, you will probably have to edit the name of
> your
> >>>> home.php file because sometimes it conflicts with these options. In
> >>>> other
> >>>> words, this scenario makes home.php useless.
> >>>>
> >>>> So, isnt it a good idea to have a posts.php template? Lets think about
> >>>> this
> >>>> solution:
> >>>>
> >>>> We have now post type archives, so, in theory, we could have a
> >>>> archive-post.php and if we access mysite.com?post_type=post we would
> >>>> see
> >>>> our blog there. It works, but it does not look very good when we're
> >>>> using
> >>>> beatiful permalinks.
> >>>>
> >>>> If we follow the same structure we have for others CPTs, visiting
> >>>> mysite.com/post would take me to the same place. But it does not,
> >>>> because
> >>>> this rewrite rule doesnt exist.
> >>>>
> >>>> Adding this rule could be a solution, but not a good one. /post/ is
> not
> >>>> a
> >>>> good URI for a blog.
> >>>>
> >>>> So what I think that could be done:
> >>>>
> >>>> . add a default rewirte rule that redirects /blog/ (or /posts/) to
> >>>> ?post_type=post (and then we use archive-post.php in our theme).
> >>>>
> >>>> . add an option in the permalinks page that lets the user change the
> >>>> posts
> >>>> base URI, as they do with categories and tags.
> >>>>
> >>>> What do you think about that?
> >>>>
> >>>> Leo,,
> >>>>
> >>>>
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