Using Clickable Map As Home Page

Hi Chuck.
If I have understood correctly, you want a landing page with no navigation menus, and you want the puzzle menu on the page.

You want to find out how to create a blank landing page on WordPress?

If this is correct…

you can duplicate the “single.php” page template and rename it as “home.php”.
Once renamed, you can remove all references to headers, navigation, footers, comments, sidebars etc.

Then when creating the page, there should be a new “home” option under page templates. Select this and then add the code for the puzzle menu into the page as per normal.

Yes, you are understanding what I want to do. After this exchange, I can simplify my question: How do I edit the theme Home page. I am ok with the menus and navigation. I want my clickable image to be on the home page with no theme header pic or widget.d I already have the prototype code. Is there anyway to just “drop it in”?

How would I duplicate the “single.php” page template? Where is it?

I realize that I am asking very basic questions. I thank you for your patience.

Well, you could try placing you prototype page in your theme’s main folder and naming it “home.php” like visiondigital suggests for single.php. Your page does need to call wp_head(); before your code outputs the closing </head> tag. A lot of themes require this to work properly. Note that unless your page does something with page title and content PHP code, such content added when you create a page with WP will not appear on your page. You do have to assign a page title none the less, but it will not display on the page.

You use FTP or your hosting file manager to place and rename new files into theme folders. You cannot do so from within WP.

If this works out the way you want, it’s not safe to leave your custom home.php in the theme’s folder. It’ll be lost when the theme updates. To protect your page, create a child theme and keep it there.

Thank you for your response. I hadn’t thought about moving the file. I was more interested in “how to” modify the Theme to get it to work. If I decide to pursue this solution, I will let you know as I will need a bit more detailed assistance.

You’re welcome any time.

If a page is straight HTML, you can copy paste the whole thing into the page editor when using the “code view” (thru 3 dot menu at upper right). Designate the page as your static home page in settings and you’re done.

Interactive maps usually have JavaScript associated with it, as well as external library links. These you cannot copy/paste into the editor. There are proper ways to enqueue JavaScript and link libraries separate from the editor. It gets rather involved.

Considering you have a working page external to WP, making it into a template is the easiest way forward IMO, but you need to find what works best for you.

Thank you for your reply. I have been swamped and had to walk away from this for a few days. I am much closer to a good solution right now. My solution was to create a new page and copy the puzzle HTML to it. I then changed my front (home) page to my new page. It took me a bit to make a few other changes but the site is satisfactory for the moment. The decision has been made to have it online even though it isn’t complete.

For what it is worth, my clickable map code does NOT have an javascript in it. Maybe it should but I don’t know a thing about Java or PHP for that matter.

Thanks again.

You’re welcome again.

If you managed to get what you want without JavaScript, all the better if you ask me ??