Not displaying any articles on a custom made file

Question

I have created the file latest.php in the public_html so that when I go to www.domain.com/latest.php it will show me the latest articles. Sadly, nothing of the posts came up. Later, I will sort them with other ways (mostly based on custom fields).

This is my latest.php file (I removed any styling for better understanding)

<?php include("wp-load.php"); ?>
<?php get_header(); ?>
<?php wp_head(); ?>

**AND HERE IS WHAT I COPY-PASTED FROM MY INDEX.PHP THAT IS WORKING**

<?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>

    <a title="" href="<?php echo get_permalink(); ?>" ><?php the_title(); ?></a>

<?php endwhile; // End the loop ?>

<?php posts_nav_link(' &#183; ', 'previous page', 'next page'); ?>

My question is how can I make it possible to show the latest articles with pagination?

Should I use an entire different method for my task? If yes, which one?

UPDATE

header and other functions are working CORRECTLY. It just not shows the posts.

Answer 1

This worked for me:

include ('wp-blog-header.php');

and before:

while (have_posts()) : the_post();

you have to create wp_query, so do this for example:

query_posts('cat=1'); // or any other query args you wish

Answer 2

Your file is completely outside of the Wordpress functionality. In order for this to work, you have to have this inside of a theme under wp-content/themes/your-theme. You will need a stylesheet named style.css (with proper theme definition header) and name this file index.php.

Answer 3

try this (relative path)

<?php
require( '../my_wordpress_install_root/wp-load.php' );
get_header();
echo 'new content outside WordPress';
get_footer();
?>

or fetch feed for your lastest posts

useful link: http://wpengineer.com/1038/embed-wordpress-functions-outside-wordpress/