If you already understand the concepts behind this, skip to the download link.

Let’s take a look at Rudd-O’s code again. Try to figure out what it’s doing:

1: <?php $homepage = get_settings('siteurl')."/home/";
2: global $wp;
3: $wp_received_argument = false;
4: foreach ($wp->query_vars as $k=>$v) if ($v) $wp_received_argument = true;
5: if ($wp_received_argument) require(TEMPLATEPATH . "/index.php");
6: else { wp_redirect($homepage);
7: exit(); } ?>

Line 1 gets the address of the blog and adds what we would use to access a static page with a slug of ‘home’.

Line 2 brings in the $wp object, which allows us to figure out if there are any parameters in the URL that we need to work with.

Line 3 sets a simple boolean value of ‘false’ to a variable that we will use to determine if we have recieved any parameters.

Line 4 looks at the $wp object and asks it if there are any parameters. If it finds any, then we set $wp_received_argument to ‘true’, and we will use that in the next line.

Line 5 is where the magic happens. If we have parameters, like the page number variable, then we will load the regular index.php template which will show you the normal blog page. Otherwise, we will continue to line 6 and 7.

Line 6 will run if we don’t have any parameters, which means that we want to show our special home page. We will send a redirect to the browser telling it to go to our static page. Then we quit running this page, since there is nothing more to do anyway.

This is a relatively simple concept. Rudd-O mentioned in his original article that one should add a link to /[wp-root]/page/1 somewhere, like in the header along with the page links for example. What that will do is give WordPress the parameters we need to have the blog listing shown. If you need help adding this link, leave a comment below.

Here’s the fun part. My hacks to Rudd-O’s code will replace the redirection of the original code. All HTML and PHP content is placed within home.php. Now that we are including our content in a straight-out PHP file, and not going back to the database to retrieve a page (via the WP Loop), you can even add a real mini-loop to your front page! You can do whatever layout you want with home.php now. (See my home page, which has the mini-loop, a list of categories, and my Flickr photostream, for an example).

Now that we understand what Rudd-O’s code accomplishes, it’s up to you to use your imagination. Until recently, my email that came upon request included some basic instructions, which read something like this:

Attached is a well-commented version of home.php. Use it to set up your custom layout, but don’t upload it yet.

In order for this to look and function properly on your site, you will need to adapt it to your theme. You will have to make the portion of home.php before my table-based layout look like the code in index.php from the top of the file to just before the loop, and from just past the loop until the end of the template. Remember to close the else statement with a right curly bracket.

Also, you will need to add the /page/1 (or ?paged=1 if you aren’t using pretty permalinks) link to the page list in header.php, which should include code to dynamically change the highlighting of the Home and Blog links.

For those basically familiar with PHP, HTML and some of the simpler CSS concepts, adapting the sample home.php file I am providing should be somewhat easy. If you don’t have such keen skills, you can review the W3Schools’ tutorials on HTML and PHP for a bit of help. (Sorry folks, these days I can’t handle doing the editing for everyone, although I wish I could.)

If you are convinced that you want a home page with a custom layout for your WordPress blog, I have provided an older version of my layout, plus all of the associated logic basedon Rudd-O’s code. As noted above, you will have and want to do lots of tweaking with it to make it look good, so grab the download below, and hack away.

 Download sample home.php layout »

Think of trackbacks as comments that are posted by your blogging tool, rather than your own self-determination. To use a rather crude comparison, they are similar to video responses on YouTube. Someone makes a video. You think that you can add to that video. you make a video, and it shows up under the existing video.

Same concept with trackbacks. You find a blog post on someone’s blog that you think is interesting. You write about it on your blog, and leave a trackback in the process. The whole nine yards:

1. You read a blog post, and you like it.
2. You write a post on your blog about it. This could possibly be an “Aside” post.
3. While posting, you paste the address of the post you are commenting on in a special field on your post editing screen. With WordPress-powered blogs, the trackback address of posts will be the post address, followed by “trackback/” (ex. http://www.mysite.com/blog/2007/01/02/my-first-post/trackback/).
4. Upon the publishing of your post from your blog, their blog is notified by your blog, and a link to your new blog post is made on their blog.

To make this all fair, you should remember to include a link to their post in your post if your post is not specifically about their post, in which case you may not remember to leave a link. That way, the network between you and them is built, and you two have formed a “micro-relationship” of sorts.

You should also leave comments on blogs regularly, but that’s another topic. Following these tips will help you build your blogging future, giving your blog increased exposure. But remember the main rule for any Web site: Content is king.

With WordPress, there have been so many attempts to make the best static front page. Most variations have included plugins that change the default behavior of the home page to display a pre-selected WordPress page. However, the Turbocharged blog showcases a new technique that uses a theme’s home.php template, and even allows you to add pure PHP code to it. Rudd-O’s solution is to place this code into the home.php file:

<?php $homepage = get_settings('siteurl')."/home/";
global $wp;
$wp_received_argument = false;
foreach ($wp->query_vars as $k=>$v) if ($v) $wp_received_argument = true;
if ($wp_received_argument) require(TEMPLATEPATH . "/index.php");
else { wp_redirect($homepage);
exit(); } ?>

Simple and quick, this will redirect to a static WP page with a slug of ‘home’. However, this technique doesn’t really provide much flexibility as to what you can do with your homepage, as you are simply limited to the tools provided by WordPress’s editor and any installed plugins.

What the code you see above does is check for any parameters passed in the URL that tell WordPress what to display in the resulting page. If parameters exist, the normal index.php template will be used. If not, the visitor will be redirected to your static page.

What I have done is extend this code so that instead of redirecting to a WP static page, the user will see the output of code run in the home.php file. I replaced the redirection code with a custom made layout, which includes a slimmed-down WP Loop, the code that displays post listing pages. This is my version (I’m going to omit the large portions of irrelevant code):

<?php get_header();
//$homepage = get_settings('siteurl')."/home/"; - from original code
global $wp; $wp_received_argument = false;
foreach ($wp->query_vars as $k=>$v) if ($v) $wp_received_argument = true;
if ($wp_received_argument) require(TEMPLATEPATH . "/index.php");
else { //wp_redirect($homepage); - from original code
//exit(); - from original code get_header();
?> <div id="content">
<?php include_once(TEMPLATEPATH.'/intro.php');?>
<!-- Primary content: Stuff that goes in the primary content column (by default, the left column) -->
<div id="primarycontainer">
<div id="primarycontent">
<div id="contentarea">
<!-- Primary content area start -->
<table summary="Layout for Educated home page" width="100%">
<tr>
...
<td style="width: 50%; vertical-align: top">
<h4 style="border-bottom-color: #070000; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: solid">Latest Updates</h4>
<ul>
<?php //begin the loop if ( have_posts() ) : while ( have_posts() ) : the_post(); ?>
<li>
<a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to <?php the_title(); ?>">
<?php the_title(); ?>
</a><br />
<span class="date">
<?php the_time('F jS, Y') ?>
</span>
</li>
<?php endwhile; else: ?>
<p>
<?php _e('Sorry, no posts.'); ?>
</p>
<?php endif; ?>
</ul>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</div>
<!-- primarycontent end -->
</div>
<!-- primarycontainer end -->
</div>
<!--content end -->
<?php get_sidebar();
get_footer(); }?>

Please do not copy this directly. I omitted various portions of important code that you may need for the code to work on your site. Please see the companion article for a sample version you can download and play with and instructions.

What this does is imitate the index.php template: it shows the user the header, sidebar and footer. But what it does differently is it shows my layout instead of posts. Using this you can create a portal-looking home page, similar to that of Devlounge and one other site that I don’t remember off hand.

I’ve discovered the home.php is incredibly useful. While hand-coding may be slightly difficult, the results are almost always pleasing. One of the static home page plugins I’ve used before didn’t make the cut, and not using it was not worth it (sorry Semiologic).

One little secret: I got the inspiration for the edit in the shower last night. Amazing what relaxation techniques can bring (either that or I’m just a good brainstormer).

I’d like to publicly thank Turbocharged for acknowledging my accomplishment on his blog. But I’d also like to thank him, since it was his code that gave me the inspiration.

As I once said: I’m not a coder, but I know how to make ends meet. That includes hacking (not cracking) other people’s code.

See also:

• OEIC » WordPress as a CMS

Eventually, someone is going to (or I will) say enough is enough, and just get rid of comments once and for all. We all hate weeding through spam emails (which affect a much greater majority of people than comment spam does), so why should we feel the smame about comments?

Start by following the four essential steps in the official upgrade guide, which involves backing up everything and deactivating all of your plugins. When you are done with that, continue here.

1. Extract the update archive to your disk.
2. Upload the files in the wordpress folder of the update archive (all of the .php files), but not any folders contained within the root wordpress folder.
3. Delete the wp-admin folder from your site using SmartFTP, the cPanel File Manager, or whatever file management mechanism you use.
4. In Windows Explorer or the SmartFTP file browser (that’s where part of the SmartFTP mention comes in, since it redefines convenience), right click on the wp-admin folder on your disk, select Send To, and then click Compressed (zipped) Folder. This will give you a new .zip file containing the contents of the wp-admin folder that you would normally upload yourself.
5. Upload the wp-admin.zip file to your WordPress root directory on your Web server.
6. In the cPanel File Manager, navigate to the wp-admin.zip file, and in the right pane, click Extract File Contents. This should extract the directory, saving you hours of time that you would normally spend uploading the update file-by-file.
7. Close the resulting popup window, and delete the wp-admin.zip file on the Web server.
8. Repeat steps 3 through 7 for the wp-includes directory.
9. Upload the wp-content directory on your disk to the site using SmrtFTP, which will overwrite the older versions of the Askimet, DB Backup, and Hello Dolly plugins. It will also give you the update default Kubrick and Classic themes. You don’t need to zip it up this time because the total size of these files is pretty small.
10. Re-enable your plugins, and test everything. If you see something scrambled up, clear your browser’s cache, and refresh that page.
11. Done!

Now if the rest of life were as simple as that, the world would be much more peaceful. But for now, at least WordPress upgrades won’t give you migraines (in most cases).

Enjoy the new look folks.