Custom Post Template

Description

This plugin provides a drop-down to select different templates for posts from the post edit screen. The templates are defined similarly to page templates and will replace single.php for the specified post. This plugin will NOT switch the templates for the different posts in a listing page, such as a date or category archive; it will only affect the template used for single posts.

Post templates, as far as this plugin is concerned, are configured similarly to page templates in that they have a particular style of PHP comment at the top of them. Each post template must contain the following, or similar, at the top:

<?php
/*
Template Name Posts: Snarfer
*/
?>

First note: Page templates use 'Template Name:', whereas post templates use 'Template Name Posts:'.

Second note: You must have the custom post template files in your theme in the same directory as your index.php template file, not in a sub-directory.

If you want to implement the custom post templates on a custom post type, you can use the cpt_post_types filter. Here’s an example of adding the custom post template selector and metabox to the 'Movie' and 'Actor' custom post types. This code can be added to a plugin or to the functions.php file in your theme.

Other Notable Features

Here are a few other notable features of this free Custom Post Template plugin.

Post

Template

Theme

FAQ

The plugin is simple to install:

Download the plugin, it will arrive as a zip file
Unzip it
Upload custom-post-template directory to your WordPress Plugin directory
Go to the plugin management page and enable the plugin
Upload your post template files (see the Description for details on configuring these), and choose them through the new menu
Give yourself a pat on the back