wp_query issue with post_type = page

Question

I am using a custom query to get pages. I need them all displayed on the front page for a one page WordPress theme. For the most part, I have the theme working and things are fine. I have this problem with the code where it doesn't recognize page templates and other custom stuff like shortcodes. For the life of me, I can't figure out why. Some shortcodes work and others do not. I had to make a query that checks to see if the page has a page template asssigned and then run the template part for content-page. Here is my code for my loop

    $page_query = new WP_Query(array(
    'post_status' => 'publish',
    'post_type' => 'page',
    'order' => 'ASC',
    'orderby' => 'menu_order',
    'posts_per_page' => '-1',
    'paged' => (get_query_var('paged')) ? get_query_var('paged') : 1
));

        if ( $page_query->have_posts() ) : while ( $page_query->have_posts() ) : $page_query->the_post(); ?>
        <?php $template = get_post_meta( get_the_ID(), '_wp_page_template', TRUE ); ?>
        <?php if( $template && $post->post_content != '' ) { ?>
                    <li id="page_<?php echo str_replace(' ','_',strtolower( get_the_title())); ?>">
                        <?php get_template_part( 'content', 'page' ); ?>
                    </li>
         <?php } 

        endwhile;
        endif;
        ?>

I have to load all my content by a shortcode. If I try to set a custom page template to a page then when I load that page, it will be blank. The page ignores the content of the custom template. The loop does notice that a page template was assigned though.

what I would like to know is if there is a better way to load all pages into the front page and make WordPress recognize all content like it does for a regular page. I have been trying for months to come up with another way to no avail.

Thank you for your help.

Answer 1

If your goal is to load the selected custom template for each page within the loop, then you're actually pretty close to that. You're getting the value of _wp_page_template, but then you're not doing anything with that template, you're just loading content-page.php for each of those pages with the line get_template_part( 'content', 'page' );.

If you instead take _wp_page_template and pass that value to get_template_part (minus the .php extension), then you'll get the behavior you describe.

if ( $page_query->have_posts() ) :
    while ( $page_query->have_posts() ) :
        $page_query->the_post();
        $template = get_post_meta( get_the_ID(), '_wp_page_template', true );
        if( $template && $post->post_content != '' ) {
            get_template_part( substr( $template, 0, -4 ) );
         }
    endwhile;
endif;