Make custom page look exactly as homepage

Question

I want to make a custom page that looks exactly the same as index.php, while showing different content.

Right now, on index.php I'm showing only posts under the "News" category, but on my custom page I want to show posts under the "Blog" category.

I tried copy-pasting index.php code into customtemplate.php but it's not working.

Hope you can help me. Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

Need more info please.

You can copy and rename the file something like page-template.php and add a page template header.

//* Template Name: Your Page Template Name

or

You could rename the file home.php and pre_get_posts to control which category of posts it displays:

function my_home_category( $query ) {
    if ( $query->is_home() && $query->is_main_query() ) {
        $query->set( 'cat', '123' );
    }
}
add_action( 'pre_get_posts', 'my_home_category' );

It depends on how the loop is generated in your theme.