How do layouts work?

• carroninsurance

  said

  What’s the point of creating page layouts when I am not able to choose a layout on which to base a page? I am forced to pick a blog template instead. In order to get my content to show with a header and footer, I must choose a portfolio option under template. If I pick default, I end up with a comment box on the page. If I pick blank page, neither a header or footer shows. The blog options look for blog posts. Is there some reason why I can’t pick a page layout rather than a blog template?

• carroninsurance

  said

  I’m talking about under Page Attributes. Under the content options, I can choose an individual header, footer and content area but whether those show or not is governed by what is selected for template. I just don’t see anywhere to select a layout to base it on so it’s hard to see the point of creating layouts.

• carroninsurance

  said

  In the demo content, there is a page called Home Pages that uses the Default Template under Page Attributes. However, this page doesn’t have a comment box on it. How was it turned off? Or is it a case of adding “display:none” to the CSS for its container?

• jeffw

  said

  @carroninsurance

  If you keep bumping this topic to the top of the list we’ll never get to it.

• andy

  said

  We answer topics in order of oldest to newest. Each time you “bump” it that resets the topic to the end of the line.

  You’re getting confused by a default WorPress option. In the “Settings > Discussion” area you’ll find the 3rd option is labeled “Allow people to post comments on new articles” and if you disable it that will prevent new pages from having the comments box.

  To removed the comments from existing page/posts you can click the “Screen Options” tab and turn on the “Comments” controls. After that’s enabled you will have a new meta control at the bottom of the screen where you can turn off comments and trackbacks.

  This is a well known and highly documented WordPress feature: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=disable+comments+on+pages

• jeffw

  said

  Just a note to clarify that for individual articles the option to enable in Screen Options is the one named Discussion, then you can disable the Allow comments setting for that individual article.

• carroninsurance

  said

  Thanks. I saw the setting in Settings -> Discussion but I didn’t want to turn them off for all pages and the Comment option in Screen Options didn’t allow me to turn comments on or off but I do see now that is under the Discussion option. That really spurred my question about the layouts but I’m still unsure what those are all about. It appears to me that you intend for a certain header and footer to be coupled with a certain content area. Otherwise, why call it a layout? However, if you fail to specifically select a header and footer when you create a page, you will get the system default header and no footer at all. I see when you turn on the Custom Fields in Screen Options that a Body selection under Content Options serves as the selector for the layout (e.g. the “layout” key appears along with a value under Custom Fields). But that doesn’t pull your entire layout…you still must specifically select a header and footer every time you create a page (unless you wish to use the default header and are not concerned about having a footer). For a test, I used the demo Blog layout. It has a header named Blog and a footer named Blog Footer attached to it. The footer uses a sidebar, Footer – Top Section, as the theme default content source. I populated Footer – Top Section with text on the Widgets screen to ensure it had content in it. Then I created a new page and set the Body to Blog under Content Options. The page displayed with the default header (as opposed to the Blog header which uses a wood-grain background image) and there was no footer at all. Those aspects of the Blog layout did not appear until I specifically selected them under Content Options. Did you intend for it to work like that or did you intend for one selection to pull in all aspects of the layout?

• jeffw

  said

  Hi, carroninsurance.

  The default layouts for the different areas of your website (aka “contexts”) are set in Appearance > Layout Manager > Layouts underneath the “Defaults” heading.

  About default layouts

  The layouts you set in the layout manager (Appearance > Layout Manager > Layouts) are the defaults that will be used unless you set set an override for an individual article. The individual article overrides enable you to optionally override the header, the body, and/or the footer used in the default layout set for that type of article.

  Your website’s home page will use by default whatever layout you set in the layout manager for the Home Page context.

  Articles that are of the WordPress “page” post type will use by default whatever layout you set in the layout manager for the Page context.

  Articles that are of the WordPress “post” post type will use by default whatever layout you set in the layout manager for the Single Post context.

  WordPress “archive” pages that are dynamically created by WordPress, such as lists of posts by certain authors for example, will use by default whatever layout you set in the layout manager for the Blog context.

  Search results pages will use by default whatever layout you set in the layout manager for the Search context.

  Your 404 Error page will use by default whatever layout you set in the layout manager for the Error context.

  If the type of page being displayed does not have its own default layout set, then it will use whatever layout you set in the layout manager for the Default layout – i.e. this Default layout setting is the fallback position “if all else fails”.

  Underneath the “Registered Templates” heading you will find a list of additional areas that may have a default layout assigned to them. For example, we have added WordPress categories to this list, thus enabling you set a different layout for every different category archive page if you want to. (If you don’t set these to defaults then these WordPress category archive pages will use the layout set for the Blog context just like all other WordPress archive pages).

  Underneath the “Custom Post Types (auto generated)” heading you will find a further list of additional areas that may have a default layout assigned to them. If a plugin creates a custom post type, this is the list to look in to set default layouts for the plugin’s specialised pages (if it has any). Here also you will find listed the Portfolio custom post type that is set up by the Vellum theme, this enabling you to set a default layout for articles that are of the “portfolio” post type.

  The usual use of layouts is to set the defaults here in the layout manager for each different context and then use the individual article overrides only if you want a particular article to use a different layout than the one set as the default for that type of article.

  I hope the above has helped you to understand how layouts work. If not, please let me know and I’ll have another go.