Child themes, templates and pages?

  • I’m configuring WordPress as a CMS that I can use as the framework to design a number of websites and I’m wondering the best way to do set this all up.

    Currently I’m using the Boumatic child theme for the Thematic theme (although I plan to create my own child theme) and using a number of different methods to display content on the various pages.

    For example, on my Photos page I’m using the NextGen Gallery and simply referencing this with shortcode in the Pages admin menu item.

    But on my video page, I’ve written a plugin to create a custom post type menu item called Video allowing the user to add new videos, and I’m displaying these videos with some custom php in a videopage.php template that I select from the drop down list in the Pages section.

    Is it better practice to create individual page templates for each page on the site, or use shortcode in the Pages menu?

    Also, the Boumatic child theme only offers functions.php and style.css so if I want to customize the way the home page looks or the blog displays posts/single posts should I do this in function.php or create my own custom template files for this – e.g. home.php/single.php?

    Any suggestions greatly appreciated! Thanks

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)

  • If these will be dedicated pages, then I’d be looking at creating custom page templates rather than using shortcodes or plugins. Simpler for your users too.

    To over-ride templates in the parent theme, simply create your own copies of the relevant template file in your child’s folder.

    Thread Starter fxfuture

    (@fxfuture)

    Thanks – makes sense.

    Actually in terms of my users, they won’t have access to the ‘Pages’ admin. I’ve made it really simple by creating custom post type menu items for the content they can edit.

    For example, there’s a menu item called Website Text, which lists all the site’s editable text regions and I reference these in the corresponding pages.

    But so far as using plugins such as the NextGen Gallery, it’s best to create a custom page template called photos.php and use the do_shortcode() function to display it?

    it’s best to create a custom page template called photos.php and use the do_shortcode() function to display it?

    Yes – I think so.

    Thread Starter fxfuture

    (@fxfuture)

    Great, I’ll do that then. Thanks!

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
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