Creating a custom front page in WordPress

Creating a custom front page in WordPress prior to WordPress version 3.0 would have been  quite difficult and would  normally involve the creation  of a custom template  and configuring your  Reading Settings under the Settings menu.

Now to create a custom front page is as easy as creating a file name front-page.php   and placing it in your theme folder. You may use front-page.php to display your  latest posts or as a static page as set in the Front page displays section of Settings -> Reading  but best of all you can use front-page.php  as a canvas for creativity.

One of the ways I like to use this WordPress front-page.php  page is to display my recent blog post from my most interesting blog categories  on my entrance page (home page) of my websites. If you look at Search Dominica You would notice that I place some of my most interesting categories on the front and also added a slide show , this makes my site look much more that a blog and more likely to delight my visitors

WordPress uses these template files automatically; according to the Template Hierarchy rules so once you create the front-page file WordPress will automatically display it as your index page.    The front-page.php template file will override home.php on the Site Front Page

So now let’s look as a sample front page

<?php
/**
 * The template for displaying front-page.php
 */
 get_header(); ?>

<?php get_sidebar(); ?>
<?php get_footer(); ?>