We just ran a fancy article series here on CSS-Tricks with a bunch of different articles all answering the same question. By fancy, I mean two things:
- The articles had a specially-designed template just for them. (Example)
- The series has a specially-designed landing page.
One of the reasons I enjoy working with WordPress is because of how easy this is to pull off. I’m sure any CMS has their own ways of doing this, and I don’t mean it to be a battle-of-CMSs thing here. I just want to illustrate how easy I found this to pull off in WordPress.
Any post can have a template
I made a PHP file in the theme directory called eoy-2019.php (eoy meaning “End of Year,” the spirit of this series). At the top of this file is some special code comments to make it read as a template:
/* Template Name: EOY 2019 Template Post Type: post */
Now any post we publish can select this template from a dropdown:
And they’ll use our cool template now!
Special scripts and styles for that template
I actually didn’t need any scripting for this, but it’s the same concept as styles.
I put a conditional check in my header.php file that would load up a CSS file I created just for these posts.
if (is_page_template('art-direction/eoy-2019.php') || is_category('2019-end-of-year-thoughts')) { wp_enqueue_style('eoy-2019', get_template_directory_uri() . "/css/eoy-2019.css?version=7"); }
A special template for the whole group
I could have grouped the posts together in any number of ways:
- I could have made a special Page template for these posts and designed that to link to these special posts manually or with a custom query/loop.
- I could have had them share a tag, and then created a special tag archive page for them.
- I could have used the same system we used for our Guides, which is a combination of CMB2 and the attached-posts plugin.
Instead, I gave all the posts the same category. That felt the most right for whatever reason. We don’t use categories a ton, but we use them for some major groups of posts, like Chronicle posts.
By using a category, I can use a special templating trick. Naming the file category-2019-end-of-year-thoughts.php, I can use the end of that file name to match the slug of the category name I used and it “just works,” thanks to the WordPress template hierarchy. I don’t need to write any code for that file to be used to display this category and I get the URL for free. Now I have a file I can use to build a special design just for these posts.
Future fallbacks
Again, thanks to the template hierarchy, the special post templates will simply fall back to the regular single.php template. The category homepage will just render from the regular archive.php template. The special styles won’t be applied, but the content will be just fine and the URLs will be unchanged. Nice.
The above is the detailed content of The Making of a 'Special Series' on a WordPress Site. For more information, please follow other related articles on the PHP Chinese website!

Hot AI Tools

Undress AI Tool
Undress images for free

Undresser.AI Undress
AI-powered app for creating realistic nude photos

AI Clothes Remover
Online AI tool for removing clothes from photos.

Clothoff.io
AI clothes remover

Video Face Swap
Swap faces in any video effortlessly with our completely free AI face swap tool!

Hot Article

Hot Tools

Notepad++7.3.1
Easy-to-use and free code editor

SublimeText3 Chinese version
Chinese version, very easy to use

Zend Studio 13.0.1
Powerful PHP integrated development environment

Dreamweaver CS6
Visual web development tools

SublimeText3 Mac version
God-level code editing software (SublimeText3)

Hot Topics

CSS blocks page rendering because browsers view inline and external CSS as key resources by default, especially with imported stylesheets, header large amounts of inline CSS, and unoptimized media query styles. 1. Extract critical CSS and embed it into HTML; 2. Delay loading non-critical CSS through JavaScript; 3. Use media attributes to optimize loading such as print styles; 4. Compress and merge CSS to reduce requests. It is recommended to use tools to extract key CSS, combine rel="preload" asynchronous loading, and use media delayed loading reasonably to avoid excessive splitting and complex script control.

Autoprefixer is a tool that automatically adds vendor prefixes to CSS attributes based on the target browser scope. 1. It solves the problem of manually maintaining prefixes with errors; 2. Work through the PostCSS plug-in form, parse CSS, analyze attributes that need to be prefixed, and generate code according to configuration; 3. The usage steps include installing plug-ins, setting browserslist, and enabling them in the build process; 4. Notes include not manually adding prefixes, keeping configuration updates, prefixes not all attributes, and it is recommended to use them with the preprocessor.

Theconic-gradient()functioninCSScreatescirculargradientsthatrotatecolorstopsaroundacentralpoint.1.Itisidealforpiecharts,progressindicators,colorwheels,anddecorativebackgrounds.2.Itworksbydefiningcolorstopsatspecificangles,optionallystartingfromadefin

TocreatestickyheadersandfooterswithCSS,useposition:stickyforheaderswithtopvalueandz-index,ensuringparentcontainersdon’trestrictit.1.Forstickyheaders:setposition:sticky,top:0,z-index,andbackgroundcolor.2.Forstickyfooters,betteruseposition:fixedwithbot

The scope of CSS custom properties depends on the context of their declaration, global variables are usually defined in :root, while local variables are defined within a specific selector for componentization and isolation of styles. For example, variables defined in the .card class are only available for elements that match the class and their children. Best practices include: 1. Use: root to define global variables such as topic color; 2. Define local variables inside the component to implement encapsulation; 3. Avoid repeatedly declaring the same variable; 4. Pay attention to the coverage problems that may be caused by selector specificity. Additionally, CSS variables are case sensitive and should be defined before use to avoid errors. If the variable is undefined or the reference fails, the fallback value or default value initial will be used. Debug can be done through the browser developer

ThefrunitinCSSGriddistributesavailablespaceproportionally.1.Itworksbydividingspacebasedonthesumoffrvalues,e.g.,1fr2frgivesone-thirdandtwo-thirds.2.Itenablesflexiblelayouts,avoidsmanualcalculations,andsupportsresponsivedesign.3.Commonusesincludeequal-

Mobile-firstCSSdesignrequiressettingtheviewportmetatag,usingrelativeunits,stylingfromsmallscreensup,optimizingtypographyandtouchtargets.First,addtocontrolscaling.Second,use%,em,orreminsteadofpixelsforflexiblelayouts.Third,writebasestylesformobile,the

Yes, you can use Flexbox in CSSGrid items. The specific approach is to first divide the page structure with Grid and set the subcontainer into a Grid cell as a Flex container to achieve more fine alignment and arrangement; for example, nest a div with display:flex style in HTML; the benefits of doing this include hierarchical layout, easier responsive design, and more friendly component development; it is necessary to note that the display attribute only affects direct child elements, avoids excessive nesting, and considers the compatibility issues of old browsers.
