I have written a plugin for wordpress. Problem is I have to manually add the custom template to the relevant theming folder in wp-content\themes\them_name and then log in to dashboard and set page template.
This is not nice when I deactivate the module since I have to deactivate the custom template also again from back-end.
Is there a way to handle this from plugin code?
Here is my code solution for adding page templates from a Wordpress plugin (inspired by Tom McFarlin).
This is designed for a plugin (the template files are searched for in the root directory of the plugin). These files are also in exactly the same format as if they were to be included directly in a theme. This can be changed if desired - check out my full tutorial http://www.wpexplorer.com/wordpress-page-templates-plugin/ for greater detail on this solution.
To customise, simply edit the following code block within the __construct method;
$this->templates = array(
'goodtobebad-template.php' => 'It\'s Good to Be Bad',
);
Full code;
class PageTemplater {
/**
* A Unique Identifier
*/
protected $plugin_slug;
/**
* A reference to an instance of this class.
*/
private static $instance;
/**
* The array of templates that this plugin tracks.
*/
protected $templates;
/**
* Returns an instance of this class.
*/
public static function get_instance() {
if( null == self::$instance ) {
self::$instance = new PageTemplater();
}
return self::$instance;
}
/**
* Initializes the plugin by setting filters and administration functions.
*/
private function __construct() {
$this->templates = array();
// Add a filter to the attributes metabox to inject template into the cache.
add_filter(
'page_attributes_dropdown_pages_args',
array( $this, 'register_project_templates' )
);
// Add a filter to the save post to inject out template into the page cache
add_filter(
'wp_insert_post_data',
array( $this, 'register_project_templates' )
);
// Add a filter to the template include to determine if the page has our
// template assigned and return it's path
add_filter(
'template_include',
array( $this, 'view_project_template')
);
// Add your templates to this array.
$this->templates = array(
'goodtobebad-template.php' => 'It\'s Good to Be Bad',
);
}
/**
* Adds our template to the pages cache in order to trick WordPress
* into thinking the template file exists where it doens't really exist.
*
*/
public function register_project_templates( $atts ) {
// Create the key used for the themes cache
$cache_key = 'page_templates-' . md5( get_theme_root() . '/' . get_stylesheet() );
// Retrieve the cache list.
// If it doesn't exist, or it's empty prepare an array
$templates = wp_get_theme()->get_page_templates();
if ( empty( $templates ) ) {
$templates = array();
}
// New cache, therefore remove the old one
wp_cache_delete( $cache_key , 'themes');
// Now add our template to the list of templates by merging our templates
// with the existing templates array from the cache.
$templates = array_merge( $templates, $this->templates );
// Add the modified cache to allow WordPress to pick it up for listing
// available templates
wp_cache_add( $cache_key, $templates, 'themes', 1800 );
return $atts;
}
/**
* Checks if the template is assigned to the page
*/
public function view_project_template( $template ) {
global $post;
if (!isset($this->templates[get_post_meta(
$post->ID, '_wp_page_template', true
)] ) ) {
return $template;
}
$file = plugin_dir_path(__FILE__). get_post_meta(
$post->ID, '_wp_page_template', true
);
// Just to be safe, we check if the file exist first
if( file_exists( $file ) ) {
return $file;
}
else { echo $file; }
return $template;
}
}
add_action( 'plugins_loaded', array( 'PageTemplater', 'get_instance' ) );
Check out my tutorial on this for more info.
http://www.wpexplorer.com/wordpress-page-templates-plugin/
I hope this helps you in what you want to do :)