Custom Template for custom theme (New guy)

Hey there,

I’m a Movable Type convert and am having a bit of trouble creating a custom template for my custom theme.

My site: https://them.jorvad.com/

What I would like to accomplish is this:

1) The index.php page is divided into two main sections – the Insight Blog and Features. The Insight Blog section, I would like for it to display the TWO most recent posts of the WP blog. I have a PHP snippet that does this, and it is working fine. The Features section, I will handle with HTML and is not blog-related.

2) I would like users to be able to click on the “Read the rest of the Insights Blog” button, or on the “Insight Blog” selection in the nav and be brought to a page that is nearly identical, but without the Features section, and including the archive/category list, etc. (A typical blog.)

So, I created a template file (I think) called blog.php in the theme folder that would display all current posts (not just the first two), etc.

However, I don’t know how to integrate this into the site as a whole. I would like the user to be able to go to https://them.jorvad.com/blog.php and see the entire blog, but instead they’re getting an input file error.

I know this is a very basic thing I don’t understand — but the documentation is a little overwhelming and I would be VERY grateful if someone could just point me in the right direction.

I figure this is just like a category template (except it’s displaying all posts), but there’s a key piece I’m missing.

Is there another approach to this?

THanks in advance,

Jordan