Use Wordpress as CMS - Custom Template Page
Posted on August 25, 2008
Filed Under Wordpress |
The well known blogging platform called Wordpress can be used as a full scale CMS to make wonderful websites of all types. Wordpress is not only a good platform for a blog. It works great as a CMS to create and manage many different kinds of unique web pages and site configurations as well.
The WP blogging platform can be used for niche websites, static page type web sites, sales copy letters, sales pitch opt in pages, business web sites, affiliate advertisements and more.
One of my favorite ways to use the power of wordpress is to use custom templates to make parts or pages of the web site unique. I will show you today how to use a page template as a custom template to make a page on Wordpress that can be totally custom. It can have its own characteristics and or features which can be totally different from the main front page of the website.
Here are just a few of the likely scenarios that could be made easily possible by using a custom page template with a new blog page.
- Show a different page header on a page.
- Want a custom sidebar to show content relevant to only that page.
- Want no sidebar on the page, make the content full with.
- Use custom css styles on one or more features on a custom page.
- Want to have different fonts, text colors or title sizes on a page.
- Would like to have the page layout or spacing formated different.
- remove post titles and or date stamps from a post or letter on a page.
The first step is to create a template to use for the new custom page.
1. Login to your wordpress admin panel and in the Theme Editor section look for and click to open the Page Template file, this file is generally a ‘page.php’ or ’singlepage.php file.
2. Copy the code from the Page Template file and paste it in Notepad or a text editor on your local computer, place the code snippet below with your desired page name in the snippet at the top of that file and save it as a .php file with a unique name, like ‘custompage.php’ for an example.
<?php /* Template Name: Graphics Page
*/ ?>
3. Now, with the template code in the new file, upload this new file using ftp or cpanel manager to your installed wordpress theme folder.
4. This file should now be accessible and can be customised from inside your wordpress admin panel in the Theme Editor area you will see the new template file there with the name you gave to it in the top code snippet.
5. Assign a new page in wordpress to use this new custom template. Go to Write > Write Pa
ge and make a new page with your desired title. Now! In the lower section of the page editor look for a setting field called, “Page Template” and click on that and open the bar to select the new template there. The area and setting in wordpress 2.6 are shown on the image at the left and this is where you would need to select your new custom made template here in this field. Select the new template name and save the page with all your desired content added in to body of the page too of course. This links the new made page to the custom template we made.
6. Now, you can return to the Theme Editor section and select your custom pages templates and make edits to this page by using the custom template file. Sidebars can be removed, header added, page title erased, etc.
When the full capabilities of Wordpress are harnessed, the possibilities are endless. It is not only a good blogging platform, wordpress also makes full scale CMS applications that can serve many different purposes.
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42 Responses to “Use Wordpress as CMS - Custom Template Page”
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It’s great post. Can you tell me deeply?
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I Agree with u
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You are absolutely right. custom templates makes parts or pages of the websites unique. Thanks for the tips and tricks you so kindly share.
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I agree with your all opinions given by you in your post.Thanks for discussing about.Waiting for your next post like this.
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Im very new to the world of wordpress, this is a very insightful article, thanks for the share.
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A nice alternative to WP is ‘Simple PHP Blog’ as it doesn’t ned a MySQL database, yet looks really professional.
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I am nor very good at coding but i have little knowledge. Can you tell me more deeply about this?
Thanks for this wonderful information.
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I agree with you, wordpress is a wonderful platform that lets you make many different things. Custom templates, together with quality content, are the only things that make your site unique.
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Wordpress is by far the best blog. Its easy to use and has a town of plug-ins. Don’t waste your time with any other blog
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Ryder reply on October 2nd, 2008 1:54 pm:
Yes, I love the versatility of wordpress.. I know for sure that I will not be using any others..
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I also use wordpress blogs on part of my site. And I use if for stand alone websites.
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Hi,
That’s a great tip. I love the logic behind it.
I followed your tips and successfully upload the new file. Saved it as custompage.php. It shows up at the theme editor but when I go to Write/edit page,it does not show up under the Page Template.
What could have gone wrong? Should I named the file as a template
…
This is what I add on top of my original page template html.
==================================
Any advise is much appreciated.
Thanks and once again great post.
Sylvester
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Ryder reply on October 2nd, 2008 1:55 pm:
Sylvester,
Did you put this code at the top of your custompage.php file before any other page code?
<?php /* Template Name: New Custom Page
*/ ?>
Also how did you make the custompage.php file in what type of editor?
Make sure to use notepad and when save the file be sure to select “All files” as the Save as type when saving the file as a php file.
Let me know if still not working or post the code from the custompage.php here and I will help you.
Ryder
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Sylvester reply on October 2nd, 2008 6:59 pm:
Hi Ryder,
A very big thank you for posting a reply and your kind offer to help. That’s really appreciated.
I have got it all worked out already by rereading ypur suggestion and this reply again.
To all folks reading this, remember to keep the code, UNCHANGED except for the part that says “New Custom Page’ and save as custompage.php
Thanks again Ryder and I hope you will post more
tips like this for us newbies
What about setting a secure download page using WP?
Have a great day
Sylvester
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Ryder reply on October 2nd, 2008 10:08 pm:
Depends on what you are meaning by a secure page?
Do you mean like using SSL to encrypt any passed data? Or like a password protected page?
Could use a few ways. Could make a page as Private in WP and that way users have to register a name and login to see that page. Or could use .htaccess or a script to password protect that one page.
Hi Ryder,
I was thinking more about the later..using htaccess or script to protect either a page or folder. Haven’t figure d out how to do that yet.
Second I was wondering how to use robot.txt to stop robots from indexing the page. I wanted to set up a download page without investing in softwares like DL Guard etc…
Thanks
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Ryder reply on October 2nd, 2008 11:20 pm:
Sylvester,
When a page is password protected or private the robots are blocked from crawling that page. So basically you will not need a robot.txt file unless that page is wanted to be regular open access but not crawled?
Also there is a password protect feature in wordpress. After you set up the page, than in the page editor, down in lower section, there is a field called “Password Protect This Page” where you can set a password that will be required to enter to view the content of that page.
Sounds like that would work good for what you have explained thus far.
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Sylvester reply on October 3rd, 2008 12:24 am:
That’s just perfect. Thanks for clearing up that for me.
Cheers… and do keep the good post coming.
Sylvester
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Thank you for the nice post. I liked also your theme colours.
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Thank you for sharing the tip! Yes, Wordpress can be used as a full scale CMS and with great results, but in my opinion the best CMS in joomla
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Ofcourse custom templates does gives a very unique attraction to your site. You have very well described how to add a custom template, A very good post.
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nice tutorial..
Love wordpress…
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I’ve always been amazed as to how WordPress is free and yet made people hundreds of thousands of dollars. Another awesome thing about WordPress, is how customizable it can be if you know how.
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Ryder reply on October 8th, 2008 12:48 pm:
Yes it is great how readily the wordpress platform can be customized and made unique or personalized to each and every persons own site.. It is truly an awesome application.
Wordpress and GNU open source software rules.
Thanks all for the comments and the visit..
Ryder
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Yeah!! you are right. I agree with your all opinions given by you in your post. Without word press how can i find my address. Anyway this helps the new comer as i think. Thanks for sharing this in your post with us.
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should check out modx. good for SEO. i am running it on my page
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I am a big fan of wordpress. It’s VERY easy to use and I see where you can use the templating to make it do just about anything for managing pages. My frustration is dealing with the “well… what you want to use is blogging software not a CMS”…. I’ve recently had wordpress shot down for that reason for a project. Maybe I should follow your how to on templating and make a site that doesn’t look like it could possibly be run by “blogging” software as a demo…..
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WP is my favorite CMS. thx for some new information
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I’ve never used Word Press before, never even heard of it, a few programes in the past have been a bit bobbins whereas this sounds quite good
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Thanks for opening my eyes to the possibilities.
I’m sort of new to all of this and enjoying it more and more as I learn more and more. Thanks for the info. Keep up the good work. 
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Ryder reply on October 27th, 2008 12:26 am:
Hello KeeKee,
Thanks for the comment. Yea.. wordpress blogs are great fun. I have been at it for a few years now and still learning new things all the time.. I say, stay at it and little by little learn the ropes and one day you may wake up as the next pro blogger.. LOL
Have fun!
Ryder
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Wordpress Themes…
I have been using WordPress for about 2 years now. All this time, I left it to WordPress default settings to get my latest blog post updated with the major blog directories and blog search engines….
It’s your encouragement that make us appreciate and more than a little appropriate after reading this article doing in blog. :wink::wink:
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Ryder reply on October 27th, 2008 12:21 am:
Thanks for coming by and the nice comment.
Have Fun!
Ryder
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HHmm I just read a post similar to this.. I think they based their post from here.. Anyway you may it first based on your date
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Ryder reply on October 27th, 2008 12:19 am:
Hello Dexter,
Thanks for dropping by my site and for your comment. So was the other post you read copied word for word? Or was it just similar to mine?
If it was word for word? I will want to ask them to remove it! Because, I would rather not have any dup content out there of my own words and site.
I write all my own content on this site and have worked to have some PR finally. I would rather not give google any reason to shrink my page rank..
Please let me know of this post, especially if in fact, is an exact copy of words.
You can use my contact page form too if you would rather not post the page link publicly.
Thanks again,
Ryder
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Wordpress is a great CMS, the static urls and sweet looking templates are a gift from God. Not many other cms have such great features. Joomla is another one, but it’s not as easy as Wordpress. I use WP for just about every site I have made. It has paid off in the long run!
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Great enlightenment, was really informative and also quite irresistible so much so that i ll use it right away and try and experiment with it.
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9mat6te0metq0iti
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Its really nice to use wordpress as CMS and it really helps as its really user friendly. Thanks for sharing.
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Thats a great tip thats, i’m not massively good with code however this looks easy to do, i think i might try to some of this stuff out.
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Interesting that the main power of WP is widely stated to be the fact it is used so much and therefore there is so much help-information and already written code.
But the feature you are highlighting is the ability to write raw code. More akin to the advantages of having access to creating php source.
Edited by Admin: Reason: Link not google indexed!
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