Title: Custom  Theme Migration
Last modified: August 20, 2016

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# Custom Theme Migration

 *  Resolved [Steve](https://wordpress.org/support/users/stif/)
 * (@stif)
 * [14 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/custom-theme-migration/)
 * Hi I’m completely new to WP and have average skills in web development.
    I have
   been learning wordpress over the last week or so using online tutorials and sites.
   I have just began migrating my site to wordpress using a blank theme.
 * I have the theme looking the way I like it and I have a basic understanding of
   wordpress. There a few things I’m having trouble with.
 * I have added:
 *     ```
       function new_nav_menu_items($items) {
       	$homelink = '<li class="home"><a href="' . home_url( '/' ) . '">' . __('Home') . '</a></li>';
       	$items = $homelink . $items;
       	return $items;
       }
       ```
   
 * To my functions.php file
    This does exactly what I want it to do (adds the home
   link to the nav menu)
 * My question is that my home.php page currently has static content. I would like
   to remove this static content and be able to add dynamic content from wordpress.
   
   How do I go about doing this? Do I need to change the above code and create a“
   Home page” from wordpress and add it to the menu from there?
 * I appologise if this is a silly question.
    TIA

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)

 *  [Chip Bennett](https://wordpress.org/support/users/chipbennett/)
 * (@chipbennett)
 * [14 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/custom-theme-migration/#post-2612200)
 * I would first recommend [reading up on the WordPress Template Hierarchy](http://codex.wordpress.org/Template_Hierarchy).
 * In WordPress, **home** refers NOT to the _site front page_, but rather to the**
   blog posts index**, and the `home.php` template file is a reserved filename, 
   as part of the Template Hierarchy.
 * What you need to do next depends on what you want to display on your site front
   page: do you want to display your blog posts index, or do you want to display
   a static Page?
 *  [Christine Rondeau](https://wordpress.org/support/users/crondeau/)
 * (@crondeau)
 * [14 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/custom-theme-migration/#post-2612201)
 * You’re talking about 2 different things here. The navigation and the content.
 * To set up a home page, go to pages, create a new page call it home and add new
   content.
 * Then go to settings > reading and choose the radio button “Use a static page”.
   The with the drop down, choose the home page.
 * With regards to your navigation, I would just use a custom menu. It’s way simpler.
 * With regards to the blank theme, you should check [Automattic’s _s](https://github.com/Automattic/_s)
   theme. It’s came out only a couple of weeks ago and has everything set up very
   well.
 *  Thread Starter [Steve](https://wordpress.org/support/users/stif/)
 * (@stif)
 * [14 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/custom-theme-migration/#post-2612273)
 * Hi, thank you both for your help.
 * Indeed I would like a static page for my home page.
 * I have taken the advice from Christine by creating a home page and setting it
   as a static page. I then made a home-page.php template page and set it as the
   template for my new WordPress home page as its different to the rest of the site.
 * I’m a little confused with editing content on the page from WordPress.
    My site
   layout looks like: Logo Navigation Image Slider Introduction Content Additional
   Content Footer With of course a sidebar down the side
 * It’s a fairly standard site layout. If I edit the home page content from WordPress
   my content changes as expected and whatever I enter appears were my introduction
   content is.
    (I’m not sure if I’m explaining this well, but if I enter “Hello
   World” in the WordPress Home page, “Hello World” appears in my introduction content.)
 * However I’m confused on what code needs to be added to my home-page.php template
   to let me edit the additional content section of the page from the WordPress 
   back end. Can this be done? Or do I need to create some sort of widget and then
   place the code into my additional content section of home-page.php?
 * Once again sorry if the question is unclear or has an obvious answer any advice
   or tips is appreciated.
    TIA, Steve
 *  [Chip Bennett](https://wordpress.org/support/users/chipbennett/)
 * (@chipbennett)
 * [14 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/custom-theme-migration/#post-2612289)
 * First, read the Template Hierarchy Codex entry I linked, above. You need to _rename_`
   home-page.php` as `front-page.php`.
 * What is the “additional content section”? I assume you’re using `<?php the_content();?
   >` to output the “introduction content”?
 *  Thread Starter [Steve](https://wordpress.org/support/users/stif/)
 * (@stif)
 * [14 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/custom-theme-migration/#post-2612295)
 * Thanks again for the reply.
    I plan to look through your link this evening after
   work.
 * You are correct, I am using **<?php the_content(); ?>** to output the “introduction
   content”
 * At the moment I plan to have either special offers or services I can offer within
   the “Additional Content” section. But would like to be able to edit all the text
   on the page from the wordpress home page.
 * Some of my other pages follow a similar structure for example my services page
   has an introduction paragraph at the top and again an “additional content” section
   which I would like to add to the bottom, were I can insert the different services
   I can offer.
 * What I am unsure about is if should I enter all the text belonging to a particular
   page into the word press text editor and the maybe extract sections of it to 
   particular places on my page, or maybe make a lot of custom fields and enter 
   the text for the additional content in them and insert the custom fields into
   my template?
 * TIA
 *  Thread Starter [Steve](https://wordpress.org/support/users/stif/)
 * (@stif)
 * [14 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/custom-theme-migration/#post-2612324)
 * Hi Just an update on my issue.
 * I have followed the correct format for my sites hierarchy
    found at: [http://codex.wordpress.org/Template_Hierarchy](http://codex.wordpress.org/Template_Hierarchy)
 * I also found some plug-ins which which seem to offer the kind of functionality
   I am looking for.
 * They allow you to have multiple content areas on a single page and edit the areas
   from the wysiwyg text edit boxes in wordpress.
 * [http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/multiple-content-blocks/](http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/multiple-content-blocks/)
   
   [http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/secondary-html-content/](http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/secondary-html-content/)
   [http://wpmu.org/create-a-more-flexible-cms-with-wordpress-using-multiple-editable-content-blocks/](http://wpmu.org/create-a-more-flexible-cms-with-wordpress-using-multiple-editable-content-blocks/)
 * Hope these help anyone else with the same issue.

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)

The topic ‘Custom Theme Migration’ is closed to new replies.

## Tags

 * [custom theme](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/custom-theme/)
 * [Edit content](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/edit-content/)

 * 6 replies
 * 3 participants
 * Last reply from: [Steve](https://wordpress.org/support/users/stif/)
 * Last activity: [14 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/custom-theme-migration/#post-2612324)
 * Status: resolved

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