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1. ixwa
   Member
   Posted 12 months ago #

   Sorry for what must seem to be a blisteringly obvious distinction, but to this WP newbie I still haven't managed to figure out (from all the forum posts and various other Q&A's I've read) what the difference is between these two pages. (I've seen the template hierarchy, but this hasn't helped.)

   Let's pretend I'm just building a simple website, with no "blog". What is my "home page"? home.php or front-page.php?

   I also have an index.php file in my themes folder (it only calls header/footer) but this never gets used, even for generic, one-off posts. Am I missing something?

   I do plan to have PHP code running on my home page, if that makes a difference...

   Thanks.

2. esmi
   Theme Diva & Forum Moderator
   Posted 12 months ago #

   What is my "home page"? home.php or front-page.php?

   Neither. Both of those are template files - not pages.

   Try having a read of Theme_Development.

3. ixwa
   Member
   Posted 12 months ago #

   I did and have been reading this all day, but thanks for posting the link.

   I have
   index.php
   home.php
   front-page.php

   And right now anything I preview appears to load with the home.php file, no matter what static front page setting I use, and even this doesn't appear to use the get_header(); and get_footer(); calls. Not sure what part I'm missing in how these templates are assembled...

4. ixwa
   Member
   Posted 12 months ago #

   I had foolishly left an old index.html on the server, which is why everything was loading the same.

5. esmi
   Theme Diva & Forum Moderator
   Posted 12 months ago #

   Rename home.php to home-old.php

6. ixwa
   Member
   Posted 12 months ago #

   Thanks, had actually just figured it out. front-page.php is the default "homepage" if static is set--I just wasn't seeing this because the old index.html was mucking up the works!

   Thanks for your very prompt replies :)

7. esmi
   Theme Diva & Forum Moderator
   Posted 12 months ago #

   home.php may also cause problems if you leave it there.

8. ixwa
   Member
   Posted 12 months ago #

   Really? So unless I plan to have a page somewhere that lists posts (all of them or just certain ones? not sure how this works) I should get rid of home.php altogether?

   In what circumstance would I want to hold onto it?

   Thanks again for your on-point help!

9. esmi
   Theme Diva & Forum Moderator
   Posted 12 months ago #

   I should get rid of home.php altogether?

   Yes. You only need front-page.php and index.php

   In what circumstance would I want to hold onto it?

   If you were using a old version of WordPress that didn't recognise front-page.php.

10. ixwa
    Member
    Posted 12 months ago #

    OK, thanks very much.

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