Need help getting blog page to show

  • I just set up this site in WordPress https://idwdesign.biz/blackburn/wordpress and everything works great except the blog page. I want the blog to show up using the same navigation and heading as the rest of the site so I made a blank blog page and under settings -> reading set the posts page to that page (called “blog”). I did not set the front page here as I customized it by editing index.php.

    I also made a custom template (page_blog.php) and set the page “blog” to use that as it’s template. Here is the loop I set up inside the template to display the blog. Can someone tell me what I’m doing wrong” Nothing displays. (If I click “View” from one of the posts though, I see the post but it’s inside a messed up version of my homepage that is not using the custom template – e.g. https://idwdesign.biz/blackburn/wordpress/archives/679 )

    <div class="art-content">
		<?php if (have_posts()) : while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
		<div class="art-Post">
    			<div class="art-Post-body">
				<div class="art-Post-inner art-article">

					<!-- Page Title -->
					<h2 class="art-PostHeader-page">
						<a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark" title="<?php printf(__('Permanent Link to %s', 'kubrick'), the_title_attribute('echo=0')); ?>">
							<?php the_title(); ?>
						</a>
					</h2>
					<!-- Page Text -->
					<div class="art-PostContent">
   					<?php the_content(); ?>
					</div>
					<div class="cleared"></div>
				</div>
				<div class="cleared"></div>
   		      </div>
		</div>
		<?php endwhile; endif; ?>
      </div>
Viewing 12 replies - 1 through 12 (of 12 total)

  • I did not set the front page here as I customized it by editing index.php

    I think that’s where your problem is. Your “posts page” uses index.php as it’s template.

    Thread Starter tjesker

    (@tjesker)

    Thanks for your reply. It does look like the posts page is using index.php as it’s template – at least when I click “view” to preview posts, but how do I get it to use page_blog.php? I went into the page “blog” that I have set to be the blog page and set the template to page_blog.php.

    Thread Starter tjesker

    (@tjesker)

    Update. I changed the permalink structure from /archives/%post_id% to /%postname% and now when I click on “view” under one of the posts the page doesn’t have a messed up sidebar (see https://idwdesign.biz/blackburn/wordpress/christmas-and-technicolor). But https://idwdesign.biz/blackburn/wordpress/blog just shows the homepage with no blog text so it seems to still be using index.php for the template instead of page_blog.php even though I have specified that template in the page called “blog.” Can anyone suggest what I might need to do? Thanks!

    it seems to still be using index.php for the template instead of page_blog.php even though I have specified that template in the page called “blog.”

    Sorry – perhaps I wasn’t clear enough. That’s how WordPress works when you specify a posts page. You can’t override it with a page template. What I would do is copy the custom index.php file and turn it into a custom page template. Then I’d reinstate the theme’s original index.php file and tweak it to incorporate the custom code from your original page_blog.php. Finally, I’d set up a static Home page with the Blog page as the posts page.

    Thread Starter tjesker

    (@tjesker)

    Thanks again for your help. I did exactly what you said and it almost works: https://idwdesign.biz/blackburn/wordpress/blog shows the latest blog post with index.php customized the way I want it. But when I click on a link for an archived post e.g. https://idwdesign.biz/blackburn/wordpress/2009/11 the page looks different and apparently uses something other than index.php as it’s template. Can you tell me how to get the archived pages to also use index.php – or else help me figure out what template page they are using? I can’t seem to figure that out.

    Archives use archive.php in themes. So changing the style of that will help you

    https://codex.www.ads-software.com/Template_Hierarchy

    Thread Starter tjesker

    (@tjesker)

    Thanks sathishn and henkholland. The Info from both of you was very helpful and got me closer to getting this how I want it. One last related question. When a post is viewed via the single.php template the comments form looks different than it does when I look at the same post via the archive.php or index.php templates. I noticed that single.php uses:

    <?php comments_template(); ?>

    to display the comment form but the templates archive.php and index.php use:

    <?php include (TEMPLATEPATH . '/comments.php'); ?>

    to display the comment form.

    I tried inserting

    <?php comments_template(); ?>

    into index.php and archive.php instead but nothing shows up on the comment form. Any idea what I need to do to get it to display?

    I like how it displays in single.php ( https://idwdesign.biz/blackburn/wordpress/christmas-and-technicolor )

    rather than the other way like here https://idwdesign.biz/blackburn/wordpress/blog

    Tjesker, I am not using comments so I am not familiar with these commands.
    Search the codex and look here:
    https://codex.www.ads-software.com/Include_Tags nr 4 and 5 in this doc.

    Thread Starter tjesker

    (@tjesker)

    Thanks again kenholland. Looks like #4 on the link above has the solution:

    “To display comments on the main index or archive pages, you’ll need to set the $withcomments variable to “1” before calling this tag. “

    I cannot find the file where the the $withcomments variable is saved though. Any idea what file I need to edit?

    You may put it on index.php to show comments there.

    Thread Starter tjesker

    (@tjesker)

    I tried putting this at the top of index.php but it had no effect:

    <?php $withcomments = 1; ?>

    Okay for now I’m just going to settle for having a different comments form show depending on how people access a post. I’ll check back later and see if anyone can tell me how to get the same comments form to show on index.php and archive.php as shows on single.php.

Viewing 12 replies - 1 through 12 (of 12 total)
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