Show a different code on front page to other pages

Question

I'm looking to display a list of posts in the header section on my template on all pages with the exception of the front page where I would like to show an image in place of the list of posts.

Is there a function within wordpress to detect the front page that I can use in my template code? or should I just be looking at PHP code that says if the URL matches X then show this, else show the other code?

Answer 1

You can use the wordpress template hierarchy to do just that. Specifically, you can put the code you want in front-page.php and then use index.php for the rest of them, though that's a rather bland way of doing design with what you have on your hands.

Alternately, there are the wordpress conditional tags which can be used to detect whether you're on a category page or the frontpage, etc.

Edit

Using the is_front_page() conditional:

<?php
if ( is_front_page() ) {
    // This is the site front page;
    // put your front-page output here
} else {
    // Put your default output here
}
?>

Answer 2

Here are 2 ways you could do this:

1. Create a page called home with your image in it (or use a custom page template with your image in it) then set that as your home page in the "Settings > Reading" section in the admin.
2. Create a template file with your desired content and call it front-page.php