How to remove/replace current page template?

Question

I am writing a plug-in that creates new front/home page from scratch. Below code works nice and it outputs the text before the themes outputs anything. So the question is how can I remove the theme creating any html code?

Basically I want the plug-i to start with blank home page regardless of any theme that is currently active.

  add_action('wp_head', 'new_front_page');
    function new_front_page(){
     if (is_front_page()){
       echo 'is_front_page():'.is_front_page();
     }
    }
  }

I am testing this on wp 3.6 and twenty thirteen.

Of course anyone is welcomed to suggest better what how to do that.

Answer 1

If you want to replace the theme home page, you cannot use wp_head hook: it is called from a theme file (usually header.php) so you can't replace something that is already included.

I suggest you to create a php file that contain your custom home page, and put it in a plugin folder. This file, e.g. 'my_custom_home_page.php', has to create the entire html for the page.

You can't use function like get_header or get_footer because this function include theme template files...

Following code is just a starting point. Using it, the plugin file 'my_custom_home_page.php' is included when the front page is required.

After return you have to put the full path of the custom home page file. The code I used works if the code is in the main plugin file and 'my_custom_home_page.php' is in the same folder. If you have a different folder structure or the code is elsewhere change the path according to it.

add_filter( 'template_include', 'my_replace_home_page' );

function my_replace_home_page( $template ) {
  if ( is_front_page() ) {
    return plugin_dir_path( __FILE__ ) . 'my_custom_home_page.php';
  }
  return $template;
}