Trouble in creating a custom template on twentyeleven theme

Question

I am trying to extend the twentyeleven theme's sidebar template. My custom template (its incomplete) is as follows:

<?php
/**
 * Template Name: Quote Request
 * Description: A Page Template that is a free quote request form
 *
 * @package WordPress
 * @subpackage Twenty_Eleven (Custom)
 * @since Twenty Eleven 1.c
 */ 
get_header(); ?>

        <div id="primary">
            <div id="content" role="main">

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

                    <?php get_template_part( 'content', 'page' ); ?>

                    <?php comments_template( '', true ); ?>

                <?php endwhile; // end of the loop. ?>

            </div><!-- #content -->
        </div><!-- #primary -->

<?php get_sidebar(); ?>
<?php get_footer(); ?>

I just name a copy of sidebar-page.php which I belive is used for creating Sidebar template pages. But I don't get the intended results. Here is what I get:

But when I select the sidebar template from the editor, I get:

I am trying to acheive this before I add my custom page elements. Can somebody point me to correct direction? I am just starting on wordpress.

Answer 1

you need to correct the automatically added body_class .singular to get the layout;

for instance use this in functions.php of your child theme (which you should have created to work from):

add_filter('body_class', 'pagetemplate_adjust_body_class', 20, 2);
function pagetemplate_adjust_body_class($wp_classes, $extra_classes) { 

if( is_page_template('new-sidebar-page-template-file-name.php') ) :
// Filter the body classes     

      foreach($wp_classes as $key => $value) {
      if ($value == 'singular') unset($wp_classes[$key]);
      }

endif;
// Add the extra classes back untouched
return array_merge($wp_classes, (array) $extra_classes );
}

if you are working with a clone of Twenty Eleven, see near the end of functions.php and expand this line with your page tempalte:

if ( is_singular() && ! is_home() && ! is_page_template( 'showcase.php' ) && ! is_page_template( 'sidebar-page.php' ) )