Navigation list not correctly styled on pages with custom template (missing .current-menu-item)

Question

My Wordpress site uses a custom front page (home.php). The blog page uses a template (blog.php).

However when I visit the blog page the navigation bar does not highligt the current page. This is because the class .current-menu-item (and the class .current_page_item) are missing from the navigation li. This class is correctly included when I visit all other pages that use the default page template.

Here is the template for the blog page:

<?php
/*
Template Name: Blog
*/

// Which page of the blog are we on?
$paged = get_query_var('paged');
query_posts('cat=-0&paged='.$paged);

// make posts print only the first part with a link to rest of the post.
global $more;
$more = 0;

//load index to show blog
load_template(TEMPLATEPATH . '/index.php');

?>

I've noticed that if I remove the call to query_posts then the nav bar styling works correctly, but the page is left blank.

Any ideas?

Answer 1

The custom navigation menu uses the global $wp_query object to figure out what page is the current page and should get that class. query_posts() replaces this $wp_query object, so the navigation menu can't apply the correct classes.

Why do you use a separate template for this page? If you specify no template, it should use the home template (home.php or index.php) with the correct posts in the loop, and you should not need your own query_posts().

Answer 2

As explained by, Jan query_posts() replaces this $wp_query object.

So what you can do is use WP_Query and store old $wp_query object:

$temp = $wp_query;  
$wp_query = null;
$wp_query = new WP_Query($args); 
while ( $wp_query->have_posts() ) : $wp_query->the_post();
    Do what you need
endwhile;
$wp_query = $temp;

or use a new variable:

$loop = new WP_Query($args); 
while ( $loop->have_posts() ) : $loop->the_post();
    Do what you need
endwhile;