Adding Custom Post Templates in WordPress Plugin

WordPress plugins are great for adding functionality to your site. Often, you may want to add a custom post template to a plugin you’re developing, for a specific post type. In this article, we’ll show you how to add custom post templates to a WordPress plugin.

Creating the Plugin

First, you’ll need to create a new plugin. If you’re not familiar with how to do this, check out our plugin developer handbook. Once you’ve created your plugin, you can start adding your custom post templates.

Adding Custom Post Templates

Adding custom post templates to your plugin is relatively simple. First, you need to create a new file in your plugin’s directory, called single-{post-type}.php. This file will be used as the template for your specific post type. For example, if your post type is called “books”, your template file would be called single-books.php.

Next, you need to add the following code to your plugin:

function my_plugin_register_post_templates() {

// Get the custom post type
$post_type = 'books';

// Get the post templates
$templates = array(
  'single-books.php'
);

// Register the templates
foreach ( $templates as $template ) {
  add_filter(
    "theme_{$post_type}_templates",
    function( $registered_templates ) use ( $template ) {
      if ( ! in_array( $template, $registered_templates ) ) {
        $registered_templates[] = $template;
      }
      return $registered_templates;
    },
    10,
    2
  );
}
}
add_action( 'init', 'my_plugin_register_post_templates' );

This code will register your custom post templates with WordPress, so that they can be used when editing a post of your post type. You can add as many templates as you like to the $templates array.

Using Your Custom Template

Once you’ve registered your custom post templates, you can use them by selecting them from the “Template” dropdown when editing a post. Your custom templates will be listed under the “Plugin Templates” section:

Once you’ve selected a template, it will be applied to that post. You can then edit the post content and layout using the template file you created.

Conclusion

In this article, we’ve shown you how to add custom post templates to a WordPress plugin. This can be a great way to add extra functionality to your plugin, and give your users more control over the layout of their posts.

In the previous article, we saw how to create custom post templates and use them in our WordPress plugin. In this article, we will see how to add custom post templates to our plugin.

We will start by creating a new file in our plugin called “my-plugin-templates.php”. In this file, we will add the following code:

post_type == ‘my_plugin’ && $post->post_template == ‘my-plugin-template.php’ ) {
$template = MY_PLUGIN_PATH . ‘templates/my-plugin-template.php’;
}

return $template;
}
add_filter( ‘template_include’, ‘my_plugin_load_post_template’ );
?>

In the code above, we are doing the following:

We are defining a function called “my_plugin_register_post_templates” that takes an array of post templates as an argument. This function adds our custom post template to the array of post templates.

We are adding a filter hook called “theme_page_templates” that calls our “my_plugin_register_post_templates” function. This filter hook will add our custom post template to the list of available post templates in the WordPress admin.

We are defining a function called “my_plugin_load_post_template” that takes a template path as an argument. This function checks if the post type is “my_plugin” and if the post template is “my-plugin-template.php”. If both conditions are true, it loads our custom post template.

We are adding a filter hook called “template_include” that calls our “my_plugin_load_post_template” function. This filter hook will include our custom post template when viewing a “my_plugin” post.

Now that we have added the code to our plugin, we can go ahead and create our custom post template. Create a new file called “my-plugin-template.php” in the “templates” folder of your plugin and add the following code to it:

In the code above, we are doing the following:

We are defining a template name so that our template shows up in the WordPress admin.

We are including the default header, sidebar and footer templates.

We are looping through the posts and including the “content-page.php” template for each post.

Now that we have created our custom post template, we can go ahead and assign it to our “my_plugin” post type. Go to the “edit post” screen for a “my_plugin” post and you will see a “Page Attributes” box with a “Template” dropdown. Select “My Plugin Template” from the dropdown and update the post.

You should now see your custom post template being used when viewing the post.