[wp-trac] [WordPress Trac] #23669: Allow front page template to fall back to home template when site displays blog posts index on front page

[WordPress Trac]

#23669: Allow front page template to fall back to home template when site displays
blog posts index on front page
-------------------------------------+------------------------------
 Reporter:  chipbennett              |       Owner:
     Type:  enhancement              |      Status:  new
 Priority:  normal                   |   Milestone:  Awaiting Review
Component:  Template                 |     Version:  3.5.1
 Severity:  normal                   |  Resolution:
 Keywords:  has-patch needs-testing  |
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Comment (by mfields):

 Replying to [comment:14 chipbennett]:
 > Are there many such Themes?

 Not sure how we'd come up with a number here. One would be enough IMHO
 though. Front-page.php was added to core almost 3 years ago in r14276.
 Changing it now can put many themes in jeopardy of changing how they
 function. Determining a number is hard, we'd have to factor all public
 free and premium themes, as well as private child and custom themes. The
 number is probably quite large seeing that WordPress is used to power a
 large amount of websites.

 > The problem is that this is not an isolated or edge-case issue. It is
 widespread to the point of being mainstream. We've spent the past three
 years getting developers to stop misusing `home.php` as the static front
 page template, but in so doing, `front-page.php` has proliferated
 primarily as a static-page-only template, with no consideration for the
 use case of displaying the blog posts index on the front page.

 I'm sorry to hear this, but I feel that it would be a step in the wrong
 direction to remove existing functionality because theme developers did
 not read the documentation before choosing to use a particular template.
 Do you have an example of such I theme? If the front-page.php file has a
 loop then it should display both post or page content in this loop.

 > Merely including some variation of a "recent posts" loop does not cause
 the static page template to be equivalent to the blog posts index
 template.

 This is where I feel that front-page.php is a strong feature. It is not
 intended to serve as a duplicate of home|index.php rather a template
 specifically designed to be the landing page of the entire site. I think
 the option provided in Settings -> Reading exists to change the query on
 the front page rather than to decide which template is used to display the
 query.

 > It is because of efforts to educate/enforce proper usage of `front-
 page.php` via Theme reviews that I have realized the need for this change.
 Education and Guidelines enforcement isn't working.

 Perhaps this would be a good "make" discussion or one for the WPTRT
 mailing list?

 I looked though the [http://codex.wordpress.org/Theme_Review Theme Review
 Guidelines] and I did not see front-page.php mentioned. It sounds like
 incorrect use of this template would be considered a blocker though.

 > Yes, the Live Preview seems to be a sticking point for a lot of
 developers. Once #19627 gets approved, the Live Previewer will have a way
 to determine whether to display the static page template or the blog posts
 index on the front page.

 Ticket #19627 is actually for an entirely different use case. Not all
 themes provide a custom page template to be used on the front page.

-- 
Ticket URL: <http://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/23669#comment:15>
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