The Blog

In this tutorial i will show you how to create a single post template for a whole category. Required for this tutorial is basic HTML and CSS knowledge.

To get started, past the following code in you’re theme’s functions.php.

/**
* Create a path to the single template folders
*/
define(SINGLE_PATH, TEMPLATEPATH . '/single');

/**
* Filter the single_template with our custom function
*/
add_filter('single_template', 'my_single_template');

/**
* Single template function which will choose our template
*/
function my_single_template($single) {
global $wp_query, $post;

/**
* Checks for single template by category
* Check by category slug and ID
*/
foreach((array)get_the_category() as $cat) :

if(file_exists(SINGLE_PATH . '/single-cat-' . $cat->slug . '.php'))
return SINGLE_PATH . '/single-cat-' . $cat->slug . '.php';

elseif(file_exists(SINGLE_PATH . '/single-cat-' . $cat->term_id . '.php'))
return SINGLE_PATH . '/single-cat-' . $cat->term_id . '.php';

else
return 'single.php';

endforeach;
}

What this code does is it searches for files named single-cat-yourcategoryname.php and then uses this file as a template for the single posts in that category. This code can also easily be done for one author. Instead use paste the following code in you’re functions.php

/**
* Define a constant path to our single template folder
*/
define(SINGLE_PATH, TEMPLATEPATH . '/single');

/**
* Filter the single_template with our custom function
*/
add_filter('single_template', 'my_single_template');

/**
* Single template function which will choose our template
*/
function my_single_template($single) {
global $wp_query, $post;

/**
* Checks for single template by author
* Check by user nicename and ID
*/
$curauth = get_userdata($wp_query->post->post_author);

if(file_exists(SINGLE_PATH . '/single-author-' . $curauth->user_nicename . '.php'))
return SINGLE_PATH . '/single-author-' . $curauth->user_nicename . '.php';

elseif(file_exists(SINGLE_PATH . '/single-author-' . $curauth->ID . '.php'))
return SINGLE_PATH . '/single-author-' . $curauth->ID . '.php';
}

This code works the same as the ones for a category, just save you’re author single post template in the folder /single and give it a name like single-author-yourename.php.