Template Part for Inclusion in Plugin for a CPT

  • I’m almost done developing a plugin that installs a custom post type, and the custom post type needs a non-standard template so that it can display additional post meta data on the “single” pages. This is desired to achieve a more plug-and-play result than what you would get with installing the plugin and then creating and/or editing template files thereafter.

    I am able to create a “single-customposttype.php” page template and include it with the plugin, however my desire is to create a “template part” template (only what would be included in “the loop”) so that I can keep the design relatively generic so that it can be added to just about any theme.

    To give an example of why a custom “single-customposttype.php” template will not work well: We can generally expect a header and a footer to be included, but some themes use a consistent sidebar and/or other optional/custom elements in the body/content area of their themes. A “single-customposttype.php” file cannot guess the surrounding framework of the active theme’s generic single.php file, and therefore might include or exclude something that otherwise would not or would be displayed on the site’s pages.

    Since “the loop” often contains a get_template_part() function that grabs the content of individual posts, it seems that one should be able to create a template affecting only the looped part. This doesn’t seem to be the case, though, according to my online searches.

    Perhaps I am approaching this challenge from the wrong angle. The idea is fairly simple though – I want to use a specific layout for the post-type-specific “content” area that displays for a custom post type without having to touch anything in the theme. Themes tend to have a generic page (single.php) – I want to figure out how to get content formatted for a particular post type into that page when a post of that post type is being viewed – from code within a plugin.

    The only somewhat working solution I have thought of so far is to programatically copy the active theme’s single.php file to a template file in the plugin and then overwrite what occurs in the loop.

    Any other ideas?

    • This topic was modified 6 years, 4 months ago by midimatt.
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  • Thread Starter midimatt

    (@midimatt)

    It seems I may be able to accomplish what I am trying to do by filtering “the_content”.

    Moderator bcworkz

    (@bcworkz)

    Unless you are customizing a specific site with a known theme, attempting to deal with theme templates is fraught with problems. It’s not impossible, but a poor solution at best.

    If this content you are adding is applied to all posts of a particular type, then yes, “the_content” filter can work. Your callback is not passed which post type you are filtering, but you can determine that from the global $post object.

    If the added content is to only be added to certain posts that are determined by the user and cannot be determined programmatically, you will probably be better off defining a shortcode users can insert into their content.

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