no sidebar test page with a really long title like this one is really long, right?
What does this page look like?
Copy just the 2 lines of code above the <html> tag and paste it into your new template and change New Template Name to a name of your choosing. Save the new page template as a .php file. Something like front.php, and upload it to your hosting account in the template folder of your current WordPress theme. Don’t call your new template page.php! There is already one called that. In fact look in the themes directory to see what files exist to not create a duplicate.
You can look at your current page.php template to get clues as to what you may want to include in your custom page template like the header and footer or possibly the sidebar. But if you include everything in the custom page template as the regular page template why bother?
The directory to place the new page template in is blog/wp-content/themes/default. Where defaultis the currently active theme.
Since you are placing this new WordPress page template into a specific themes folder it will only be available when that specific theme is active. If you change themes you will need to place a copy of it into the currently active theme.
To create a new page template within your hosting accounts control panel. Browse to your blogs main directory, wp-content, themes, then click on your currently active theme. Create a new PHP file, call it whatever you wish, like above front.php, paste your HTML code and then the PHP code directly above it and save.
Creating Your New Custom Page
Login to your WordPress Dashboard, click Write then Write Page. Since we didn’t specify in the custom page template to get the content, or any other information for that matter, all we need to do here is create a new page and specify the page template to use.
Type a title in the title box, then look over to the right and click the Page Template drop down box, choose your new WordPress page template and click publish.
Using A Custom Static Front Page
If you want to use a your new custom page for a static front page you will first need to create another regular page as a URL as your blogs Posts Page . Create a new page and give it the title blog, or anything you want. Again don’t bother writing any content, on the right side type the same name as the title in the Post Slug box and click publish.
To specify using a static front page, click Options then the Reading subpanel. Choose the Static Page option, specify your new custom page as the front page and the newly created blog page as the Posts Page and click Update Options.
Note! You do not need a custom page template for a static front page. You can create a page with all the content on it you want for the front page, and then a blank page for the post page. Then choose the static front page option as above.
