Can't find the home page file

  • Windbrand

    (@windbrand)


    11 years, 4 months ago

    I’m working on a university class website with another student. I think he installed wordpress onto the website, and now I can’t find where the index.html file is to make changes to the home page. It was originally public_html/index.html, but now it doesn’t use that file, so I’m guessing wordpress is pointing the home page to another file somewhere. I’ve already checked public_html/wp-admin, but that’s just wordpress’s core php files, nothing about the actual website is there.
    The class website is: http://www.web2pointsomething.org
    Can anyone inspect the directory of the home page? The website is using bluehost, which uses cPanel, and I do have the cPanel username/password.
    Thanks for your help.

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
  • Thor Brink

    (@thorbrink)

    11 years, 4 months ago

    The index.php in your wordpress root folder is the one executing WordPress, but that is not where you should be editing.
    The file that is commonly acting as the ‘home page template’ is the index.php in your activated themes folder under ‘wp-content/themes/activated_theme_name’ (activated_theme_name is just to show you the path, it’s not the actual name).
    More on how WordPress themes work is found in the Codex.

    Thread Starter Windbrand

    (@windbrand)

    11 years, 4 months ago

    The wp-content/themes/[theme name] is also just files for the theme, like the code for WordPress itself, not the website. I’ve checked every index.php and home.php in that directory and found nothing that has to do with the website’s main page. Can someone inspect the website: http://www.web2pointsomething.org? Maybe there’s some way to find out which file the home page is using?

    Andrew Bartel

    (@andrew-bartel)

    11 years, 4 months ago

    WordPress stores most of its content in the database, so that it is generated dynamically. If you go into the administrator section for example, under Pages, none of those are actually physical files, they’re just entries in the database.

    Your homepage can be a few different things. If you go into the settings > reading page in the admin section, look for the value for “Front Page Displays:”

    If it’s set to a static page, that’s the name of the template you should be editing. That name is defined at the top of the .php file as something like:
    /* Template Name: News Letter Page */

    If it’s set to display the latest posts, WordPress first looks for front-page.php, and if that doesn’t exist, then home.php, and then index.php, all in the root of theme that is currently activated.

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
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