Can You Build Page Templates Without Extra Files

Question

I'm very familiar creating page templates in WP and for this project I really just have one page template with an option to switch the sidebar from the right side to the left side. The problem is that I would hate to have all of that duplicate code in both templates especially since I'll just be swapping css classes on the two elements.

Options:

• 2 separate Page templates
• Custom fields
• Custom taxonomies

I'm thinking that having a custom taxonomy might be the best solution. The client would see a small box on the right side of the page titled Visual Options and there would be a checkbox for Sidebar on right. It is intuitive and it is DRY.

Is there something else I didn't consider?

Answer 1

Don't use custom page templates for structural layout changes.

Use custom post metadata instead, and then output conditional CSS rules (or even custom HTML markup, though that's probably not necessary here) based on the value of the custom post metadata.

Answer 2

You can use conditional tags.

Example: Your index.php file in your currently active WordPress theme might look like this:

<?php
get_header();

if(is_page()){
    if(is_front_page()){
        // Home page
    } elseif(is_page('About Us')){
        // About Us page
    } else{
        // Any page
    }
} elseif(is_404()){
    // Error not found page
}

get_footer();
?>