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I am creating a plugin that registers a custom post type, and I want it to be displayed using the theme's page.php template, rather than the post.php. I set the hierarchical flag when I register it, but the post.php template is still called.

Way, way down inside wp-includes/post.php, where it appears to decide which template to use, is the code:

if ( ! empty( $postarr['page_template'] ) && 'page' == $data['post_type'] ) {
    $post->page_template = $postarr['page_template'];
    $page_templates = wp_get_theme()->get_page_templates( $post );
    ...

which makes me think that the post template is used unless post_type is exactly 'page'.

I don't want to define a template of my own, because I want to work with any theme. I just want to tell WordPress which of the current theme's templates to use.

There's an action hook, called get_template_part_{$slug} that might do the trick, but I'm not sure what it expects, and the documentation for that one is unusually spotty.

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  • And no sooner do I post that than I find the 'single_template' filter hook. Now if I can figure out how to return the page template for the current theme, I'm on my way.
    – Jerry
    May 5, 2016 at 1:06

2 Answers 2

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You can filter template_include and then let WordPress search for a page template in all valid templates like page.php, index.php and even files from a parent theme.

add_filter( 'template_include', function( $template ) {
    return is_singular( [ 'YOUR_POST_TYPE' ] ) ? get_page_template() : $template;
});
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  • Thanks! This looks really good. I'm just waiting for a free moment to try it out.
    – Jerry
    May 9, 2016 at 1:46
  • One of the themes I work with uses get_template_part() to load the template for that part of the page; when I call get_page_template() in that context I don't get anything back. I've got a hack in place to filter request, which then causes my type to return true for is_page(), but it makes me a little nervous.
    – Jerry
    Jun 5, 2016 at 1:00
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That's exactly it. You should be able to use something like this, replacing the your_post_type:

function get_custom_post_type_template($single_template) {
    global $post;

    if ($post->post_type == 'your_post_type') {
        $single_template = get_stylesheet_directory_uri() . '/page.php';
    }
    return $single_template;
}
add_filter( 'single_template', 'get_custom_post_type_template' );
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  • That was all well and good and I was excited until I noticed that the other theme I'm testing on doesn't have a page.php, but instead uses content-page.php, presumably called by get_template_part somewhere (maybe the default page.php?). So I can't count on page.php being in the theme directory. Is there a way to ask Wordpress "if you were to render a page right now, what template would you use?"
    – Jerry
    May 5, 2016 at 1:34
  • There's no way that your other theme can only be using content-page.php. It must be using page.php, which then includes content-page.php.
    – frogg3862
    May 5, 2016 at 1:37
  • Curious. There is no page.php file in the theme's directory, and no template listed in the styles.css header, which I take to mean it's not a child theme that uses another theme's page.php. Indeed, all the other themes have a page.php file. I assume there's some global Wordpress fallback, but I can't find it.
    – Jerry
    May 5, 2016 at 2:13
  • According to the template hierarchy, if page.php doesn't exist, then it may use singular.php or index.php developer.wordpress.org/files/2014/10/template-hierarchy.png
    – frogg3862
    May 5, 2016 at 2:23
  • Turns out it has custom loop in its index.php that calls a function that renders the stuff. Yarg. So... back to figuring out how to make is_singular() be false and is_page() be true, I guess.
    – Jerry
    May 5, 2016 at 2:36

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