Portfolio Herick Correa Designing templates with WordPress

Video Description [cite: 1]

The talk we are going to have now, with Herick, will touch on some very similar points regarding this issue of dashboard customization, of user-centered design. [cite: 1]

The panel is right over there for a reason — we figured there was a really cool connection. [cite: 2]

So, to get back into the rhythm of the event’s talks, let’s call our elite troop. Hit the music, Felipe! [cite: 3]

Now things are going to get serious! Unfortunately, the Wi-Fi doesn’t allow everyone to use it. [cite: 4]

And I also need to ask that when you ask questions, wait for the microphone, because since this is being recorded, otherwise there will be gaps in the audio — answers without questions. [cite: 5]

Well, guys, my name is Herick. Herick Correa, okay? I’m going to talk about template design, but I’m not just going to talk about design. [cite: 6]

Because I’m not here to teach anything, I’m not here to tell you what you have to do or what you cannot do. [cite: 7]

I’m here to try to bring a way of thinking. [cite: 8]

What I’m going to say here is to guide you to think about how you’re going to build a template. [cite: 9]

And a lot of what I’m going to say, people have already talked about here in this panel. [cite: 10]

Actually, they’ve already said seventy percent of my talk — only in a very formal way. [cite: 11]

I’m going to speak more illustratively, and I think it will be a good complement to what they said, because I brought some images. [cite: 12]

I also wanted to say that Maujó has already made a lot of money off me with his book. [cite: 13]

So, an important thing: as much as you know CSS, as much as you know HTML, sometimes it’s good to buy a book from someone you trust. [cite: 14]

I didn’t know him personally, but I trusted the whole community that spoke highly of his product. [cite: 15]

Sometimes you want to read about semantics, know what that HTML means, what that tag, that code does, why use it or why not use it. [cite: 16]

So sometimes it’s good to read this from someone reliable, because on the internet there are a lot of people saying different things. [cite: 17]

So it’s good. And it was a pleasure to actually meet him. Let’s go. The point is this. [cite: 18]

Let me introduce myself properly. Well, I already said my name. I work with the Web. [cite: 19]

I took a Web course in 2002 and, since then, I fell in love with the Web. [cite: 20]

I went to college for Design because I used to draw and thought my future would be in illustration and drawing. [cite: 21]

But it wasn’t. Everything I learned in Design college I brought to website creation. [cite: 22]

I started with FrontPage too. At that time the frameset was trendy. And then I kept evolving. [cite: 23]

But my professional career was a bit confusing, because I started as a designer, graduated as a designer, and was hired in companies as the “web designer,” the guy who did everything from the magazine ad to the company’s website. [cite: 24]

There wasn’t this division between front-end and back-end like there is today. [cite: 25]

Nowadays it’s easy — one guy does the layout and another builds it. Back then, no. You did everything. [cite: 26]

Until I ended up at an agency. When I started working at a web agency, I began to see this differentiation. [cite: 27]

I started working with front-end, because I joined as a designer, but nobody did HTML. Back then, this was kind of obscure. [cite: 28]

So much so that you were hired as an “HTML programmer.” It’s in my work record book. I have proof. [cite: 29]

So you were the “HTML programmer,” you got there and built the HTML, because there was no one to do it. [cite: 30]

You did design. I worked in an agency where there was no HTML, no back-end, no front-end. [cite: 31]

Neither back nor front. So, since I was alone, I had to pick an option, a tool. [cite: 32]

And since I already knew WordPress, I think since… Over time, I was forced to think more about the client — which is the big idea of this talk here. [cite: 33]

Which is the following: you go to the client and they say: “I want to change that alert phrase ‘Your email was successfully sent.’ I want to put: ‘We will reply shortly.'” [cite: 34]

Then you say: “Oh, you can change it. It’s inside Appearance, in the widget. There’s a widget there called Alert that I created.” [cite: 35]

No. You are not going to do that. You are going to create an area in the admin menu. [cite: 36]

And in that area there will be something like “Settings”, “Options”, or “Site Texts” — you choose. [cite: 37]

And there it will have “Alerts”, “Title of something”, or “Title of some area”. [cite: 38]

The intention here is to make you think both about the development part and the client’s experience. [cite: 39]

Because you are not going to go to the client and say they have to mess with a widget. [cite: 40]

They won’t know how. The ideal is perhaps to hide this part, so the client doesn’t even see it. [cite: 41]

Like Richard said: you use the Admin Menu Editor and hide this part, because I think the client shouldn’t mess with it. [cite: 42]

Because just as you left the widget showing, you left the menu part showing. [cite: 43]

Left other parts showing, like the template editor — those things. [cite: 44]

That is not what the client should be touching. They should only touch what they need to touch. [cite: 45]

If they need to handle an update, they either call you, ask you, or you send it. [cite: 46]

You can even say: “Look, you have this admin login here, which you’ll use to work on the whole site. But please, when you log in with this one here, only touch this part.” [cite: 47]

That way, they can update WordPress. So, it’s important to create a hierarchy. [cite: 48]

But to create this hierarchy, it’s also important to create an area — a friendly environment for the client. [cite: 49]

That’s the idea. And as they said here — and this talk was ready before they spoke —, it seems to be a universal concept: everyone thinks WordPress is a limited tool. [cite: 50]

But that is a lack of knowledge. As it was said here: it’s not limited. Sometimes, the limitation is in the knowledge. [cite: 51]

Sometimes you don’t know how to do something. But then you go on Google: “plugin to do such a thing.” [cite: 52]

Man, there’s going to be a plugin. Someone already screwed up before you. [cite: 53]

You can be sure that, especially in WordPress, someone already got screwed before you, created a solution, and turned it into a plugin. [cite: 54]

And it’s very simple: you take the function you made — which you would usually put in functions.php —, throw it into a plugin, and you’re done. [cite: 55]

Saved another person’s life. So, it’s not limited. [cite: 56]

Maybe it’s you who hasn’t searched properly on Google for what you needed. [cite: 57]

Well, now, starting the creation part… I, as an interface designer, whenever I’m going to create a template, I have to think. [cite: 58]

Because, usually, whoever works with front-end or back-end and takes someone’s template, thinks like this: “How am I going to build this site? I’m going to build it in Bootstrap, set up these areas here…” No. [cite: 59]

That’s not what I’m talking about. [cite: 60]

I’m not here to say how you have to do your HTML. I’m here to try to show how you have to think about it — both on the front and back — in a way that is extremely friendly for the client to handle as well. [cite: 61]

For example, this was a site I made. (And I don’t know how to use this laser here…) This was a site I made. [cite: 62]

The client hasn’t updated the site yet, so, if you try to take this presentation and go there, you will still see a lot of lorem ipsum. [cite: 63]

But that’s okay. It serves our purpose. It was like this: I designed this site for the client. [cite: 64]

And, when building it, I created the following areas, okay? [cite: 65]

I created the highlight part, this here is inside “about”, and this here is the post category. [cite: 66]

In other words, at the time I thought: “Well, can I pull this here as a post?” I can. [cite: 67]

But what if she wants to feature something else? [cite: 68]

Am I going to create a category where I say it’s a post? [cite: 69]

Or am I going to create a category just for highlights, and all the posts that are also in this highlight category will appear there? [cite: 70]

No. That’s wrong. Why? Because, inside the post, if she wants to talk — like: “Here in England, it’s the Queen’s National Week” — and wants to make a post about it as a highlight, she will have to create a post that is not a product, and say it’s a highlight. [cite: 71]

That’s confusing. So, what do you do? You get a plugin like Advanced Custom Fields and create an area. [cite: 72]

It has an add-on called Options, where you can create sections within your menu, and inside those sections you can create sub-items. [cite: 73]

For example, I usually create an area called “Additional Content”, or “Complementary Content”, or even “Options”. [cite: 74]

And then I create an area called “Highlights”, and inside “Highlights” the person adds this right here, you see? [cite: 75]

She doesn’t need to create a post for that. She can create this content right here. [cite: 76]

ACF allows you to link this image, or this content, to a post if you want. [cite: 77]

But it is much easier for the client to create it this way than having to remember that, to be a highlight, it needs to be placed in a category, that it can’t be “product”, it has to be “highlight”, etc. It’s confusing. [cite: 78]

Here, I put this inside the “about” page. And this is another thing I’m going to talk about: how to get content from a specific page, even if it’s not the main page. [cite: 79]

So, even if this doesn’t appear inside the “about” page, when you click on the link for that page on the front-end, this content doesn’t show up. [cite: 80]

This is content that I created just for the home page. But it’s inside “about”. Why? [cite: 81]

Because it’s on the “about” (or “about us”) page that this content should be. This content is “about”. [cite: 82]

So, the client understands that they will have a field to write, to place a video, they will have a field to place a testimonial, and to write about each of these three topics here. [cite: 83]

They will understand what to do more easily. And here is the normal post category. [cite: 84]

What I want to show is that when you take a layout to build — a template —, it’s not enough just to think about how you’re going to write the HTML. [cite: 85]

Because HTML is the least of the client’s worries. And they are paying. [cite: 86]

So, for them not to keep calling you… I know because I’ve been working with this for almost ten years… And, man, they call. [cite: 87]

Now, with Facebook being super BFF, you know? The guy pings you. It’s ten at night: “Are you awake?” [cite: 88]

And you: “I am.” Believe me: you have to answer. Because you are a freelancer. Your great differentiator is not having fixed hours. [cite: 89]

The client doesn’t need to call you from nine to six. [cite: 90]

It’s okay, if he calls you and you’re sleeping, you won’t answer, you’ll call back later. [cite: 91]

But the great differentiator of being a freelancer is this direct service with the client. [cite: 92]

The client knows they can reach you at any time. This provides security. [cite: 93]

If he pings you at ten at night on Facebook, you have to answer. And there’s WhatsApp too, you know? [cite: 94]

WhatsApp is blowing up. Turn off the sound, turn down the volume of WhatsApp because it’s complicated. [cite: 95]

But anyway, that’s cool, because you can chat, and it also brings a certain informality to the relationship with the client. [cite: 96]

So, sometimes you can even drop a casual word — and the guy won’t be shocked — because he knows you’re there, having an informal chat. [cite: 97]

But anyway, he will ask you. If you don’t make something intuitive, he’s going to ask you. He’s going to call you. [cite: 98]

He’s going to wake you up. That’s why it’s important that we… This site was an experience, because it used… it used a lot of custom content, used a lot of WP Query, used a lot of Custom Fields, and we also worked with many different categories. [cite: 99]

So, for example, the other day they asked me how I would make one category different from another, because if the category is just a page, how am I going to change it? [cite: 100]

How am I going to have a design for category X and another for category Y? [cite: 101]

That was cool too, because I managed to work that out in this template. As I said, I created a Highlights area. [cite: 102]

You have the News part, which is the normal posts part. [cite: 103]

Since they wouldn’t have a blog in the future, I worked the news parts as if they were posts — but I used a plugin in the admin to rename “posts” to “news”, because if the grass color changed, the animal would starve. [cite: 104]

Even though this client was very smart — the guy who managed this site was very smart — he understood without needing much explanation. [cite: 105]

But not every client likes to understand. They don’t read. They don’t want to read. [cite: 106]

Even though Advanced Custom Fields allows you to write what each of the fields means — you can describe: “here you put this, this, and this, which will appear there, there, and there” — they won’t read it. [cite: 107]

He will say: — “Herick, what is this here?” Then you will repeat the exact same words. [cite: 108]

Everything written there, you will repeat. He will say: — “Ah, that’s right. It’s right here, look.” [cite: 109]

— “Man, I didn’t see it.” — “Yeah… that font is a very light gray, sometimes it’s hard to see.” [cite: 110]

Man, you’re there for that, right? So, in this case, I set it as a post, created a custom post, another custom post, and there are several custom posts on this site too. [cite: 111]

I think I’ll show his menu shortly. Well, the front-end… In the old days, you had that blog, which was the face of WordPress — that blog with a bunch of posts (pardon the word), and with that “see more” button. [cite: 112]

So, you had that listing, as if it were the initial identity of WordPress. That started changing. [cite: 113]

Nowadays you have calls to action, highlights, JavaScript slideshows, sometimes image grids — like an image panel. [cite: 114]

This changed, but it also raised doubts for those who are going to build it. [cite: 115]

Like: “How do I call two categories on a page that isn’t the category page?” [cite: 116]

The guy clicked on “Home”, which is a starting page, but how do I call two categories there? [cite: 117]

How do I make a post of something else I want appear? [cite: 118]

How do I make content, edited by the client, appear on all pages without having to use WP Query all the time? [cite: 119]

So, questions arise that I will try to solve with what I’m going to say now. [cite: 120]

First of all, you need to know WP_Query. I know I was asked — Google commented to me not to do something so technical — but this is a very nicely summarized way of how you do this. [cite: 121]

There is no way to be more flexible on this point, you know? And since people here have already talked about layout in a very generic way, I think I can even get a bit more technical in this talk. [cite: 122]

So, here we go: You need to know how to work with pre_get_posts, because with it you can do the most basic things — like changing the order of the posts, which WordPress, by default, doesn’t allow. [cite: 123]

You can’t say you want it to appear by date or alphabetically. So, what do you do? [cite: 124]

You need to understand this here. Because sometimes, with one line — a single line of code — you change the order of the post. [cite: 125]

With this code right here, which I took from the WordPress Codex — a simple code, okay? [cite: 126]

Here it’s a bit more refined, because it already brings an HTML example, already gives an echo there… But with this, you can call a post that shouldn’t be there, you can call a category that wasn’t supposed to appear on that page, you can integrate things that weren’t supposed to be there… and they become present. [cite: 127]

Just don’t forget the following: once you open WP_Query, you need to reset it. [cite: 128]

This is important, because otherwise you can’t close this query and it might end up causing problems with the rest of the content that should appear below — which is sometimes the original page. [cite: 129]

So, here you only open a block to show what you wanted to show, and close it. [cite: 130]

Because if you don’t close it, it will cause problems. It’s not that it might cause problems — it will. [cite: 131]

Here I give some examples from an old site I made. [cite: 132]

In it, I took the first post of a category and gave it a bigger highlight. [cite: 133]

And in the other three positions? One of the doubts was: — “If I already grabbed the first post, how am I going to grab the next three without repeating the first one?” [cite: 134]

Then you start studying the arguments you can pass in WP_Query. [cite: 135]

For example, here I took the most recent posts from categories 2, 5, 4, 6 and 8, but limited it to 1 — so the most current post from all these categories will appear here. [cite: 136]

Then, I used offset, which means: I want it to skip the first one. [cite: 137]

In this case, I used offset 1, meaning it will skip one — the first one — and display the other three. [cite: 138]

These aren’t the same categories here, because I just wanted to give a usage example. [cite: 139]

Because you can also do this: you can take the categories, turn them into an array and display them. [cite: 140]

It will depend on your use case, how you access these categories and your project. [cite: 141]

Here there’s also another category argument — it’s the same thing, but a bit more complete. [cite: 142]

Could you do this with CSS? Grab the :first-child in CSS? You could. [cite: 143]

But for some reason, I thought it better not to, because of the image size. [cite: 144]

The image weight is important. In this case here, I loaded a larger image, I allowed myself that. [cite: 145]

Here, I grabbed smaller images in the other blocks, which makes all the difference when you’re working with something that might appear on a mobile or tablet. [cite: 146]

So, whenever you can reduce the weight, sometimes it’s better to run another SQL query than to load a large image that, instead of being 12 KB, will be 50 or 60 KB. [cite: 147]

I think it’s more costly. So, in this case, I did it this way for that reason. [cite: 148]

— “But in the example you gave, on the left, the highlight has categories 2, 5, 4, 6 and 8. And below, 2, 5 and 4. You couldn’t do that with CSS.” [cite: 149]

No. But actually, here I just used it as an example. [cite: 150]

In this case, the categories were the same — I just put it to give an argument example. [cite: 151]

Here is just another example of image weight. [cite: 152]

Well, now let’s start talking a bit about how to build the backend. [cite: 153]

I don’t even know if I’m going too fast. I don’t even know the time. So, what happens? [cite: 154]

As I told you guys: let’s talk about the backend. And the backend has to be friendly. [cite: 155]

I’m repeating this because it’s very important. You guys already saw that you can build — like the folks said here — you can build whatever you want in your template. [cite: 156]

Your template will be there, set up. You will be able to do it in the backend, pull all the posts you want, do everything. [cite: 157]

But if you have to create a document for the client to understand what you did, that’s not cool. [cite: 158]

Let’s start thinking about the backend for the client too. [cite: 159]

Everything you do on the front-end — like a highlight area, a grid area, a JavaScript slide… — all of that, you have to think about how you’re going to do it in the admin, in the dashboard. [cite: 160]

Because if you have to keep explaining everything to the client — everything they have to change, how they alter the data — you’re screwed. [cite: 161]

They will reach out to you, call you, talk to you… You will end up giving them a WordPress course. [cite: 162]

And worse: you’ll give this course at 10 at night… on Facebook! Or on Skype too. [cite: 163]

Skype is also booming. So, I’m going to talk here about three plugins that are very interesting. [cite: 164]

There’s Advanced Custom Fields, which I’ve been talking about here for a while. [cite: 165]

For me, this should be in the WordPress core. I might be talking nonsense, but making WordPress without it makes no sense. [cite: 166]

That “admin” option is in the editor. By the way, the guy who created this plugin is really nice. [cite: 167]

I don’t know if his name is Yannis or Janis, I don’t know. [cite: 168]

But at the Meetup we had in August, he gave us three licenses to raffle off. [cite: 169]

One of the winners is even bugging me, because I forgot to send the license. But it’s in the email, rest assured. [cite: 170]

He was super cool. He said: — “Man, take three licenses here. When WordCamp happens, let me know and I’ll send more.” [cite: 171]

I ended up forgetting to let him know… but I’ll try to talk to him again. It’s a lot of stuff to do. [cite: 172]

And since this talk is probably going to WordPress.tv, I even wanted to publicly thank the opportunity he gave us to distribute these licenses. [cite: 173]

And I can show this plugin to more people too, which is very cool. [cite: 174]

I was even going to change the talk to remove the custom post type part and put WP Generate, but I thought it would be a bit too advanced. [cite: 175]

I thought I would have to explain better how that site works, so I think maybe the custom post type is a friendlier way to work with personalized content. [cite: 176]

The Pulsar Constype plugin allows you to create areas in your admin that you didn’t have before. [cite: 177]

You don’t have to be stuck to “post”. One of the things everyone does at the beginning is: post, category… then it’s in the “highlight” category, then it’s in “home highlight”… and then you start creating a bunch of logic based solely on categories. [cite: 178]

And you don’t need to go through that. Actually, for a long time you haven’t needed to go through that. [cite: 179]

And today, even less so, because clients are more demanding. [cite: 180]

So you can create a post type called “video”, you can create “previous editions”, “photos”, “job openings” — as is the case of the union’s website menu. [cite: 181]

You can create specific areas. You can make the client understand. [cite: 182]

And anyway, now you can have these areas without having to explain everything to the client. [cite: 183]

Because when they open the admin and see “Videos”, they will click on “Videos”. They won’t click on “Post”. [cite: 184]

They will click on “Videos”. — “Wow, cool, it got modernized. There are videos here!” It’s more or less like that. [cite: 185]

It’s the simplicity of the thing that makes all the difference. Now, let’s move on to the Admin Menu Editor Pro. [cite: 186]

The “Pro” is because there’s the standard version, which is free — but, honestly, I don’t think it works very well. [cite: 187]

I’ve had problems with it. I don’t know if it improved. But after I started using the Pro version, I never went back. [cite: 188]

Because the Pro has the following difference: in the free version, you change it for everyone. [cite: 189]

Something you hid here, for example, “Tools” — which is something I hide right away… — Hello Herick, my name is Felipe. [cite: 190]

I’m a director at Digital Terrain. Herick, from what I understand of the system you presented, there is no need to create a kind of manual for the client. [cite: 191]

You focus so much on the admin, in such an intuitive way, that it explains itself. [cite: 192]

The client can follow along and make the changes without needing any additional instructions. Is that right? — No. [cite: 193]

Actually, the following: you will have to give instruction, because… imagine — I think like this — imagine your father, who is seventy years old, is not used to handling this. [cite: 194]

Then he logs into that thing and thinks: “Man, what is this? What do I do?” I like making videos. [cite: 195]

A video using screencast. I like doing that: teaching the guy to do it the right way. [cite: 196]

But the fact that it’s a friendly dashboard means the guy will only need to watch the video once, because later he will remember everything you explained, because it’s all right there, you know? [cite: 197]

If in the video you tell the guy that he has to go to “Appearance > Widgets > Sidebar 3” to change an alert, every time he wants to change that text, he will have to remember that path. [cite: 198]

It’s different if you have an area called “Change Alert”. [cite: 199]

He might not even remember what the first text or the first alert was, but you already told him: — “Look, here you change the text that appears on the screen.” [cite: 200]

So every time he looks at that menu item, he’ll know that’s it. [cite: 201]

In other words, it’s not that you avoid making a manual, you just avoid repeating the same thing over and over, you get it? [cite: 202]

I think that’s what’s important. And that’s where the ease of a clean admin dashboard comes in, right? Yes. [cite: 203]

The fact that you reduce this kind of thing saves lives. Is that the plugin you recommend? [cite: 204]

There’s also Adminimize. Do you know it? So, Adminimize and Admin Menu Editor clash a bit. [cite: 205]

If I’m not mistaken, Admin Menu Editor prevails over Adminimize. But it’s up to you. [cite: 206]

Adminimize hides a lot more stuff than Admin Menu Editor. So, it’s your choice. [cite: 207]

I prefer Admin Menu Editor because Adminimize doesn’t let you rename items, and this one does. [cite: 208]

So, I think… I’m not doing an ad for the plugin, okay? I’m just saying that for me, it helps a lot. [cite: 209]

Whether it will help you or someone else, I don’t know. But for me, it works. [cite: 210]

And I think it’s worth it. It’s almost a core WordPress plugin, because everyone installs WordPress and immediately runs to install it. [cite: 211]

It’s very easy to use, very simple. And there isn’t much to say about it. [cite: 212]

I believe everyone who works with ACF already knows it. [cite: 213]

It’s a plugin that allows you to add fields to your posts. [cite: 214]

Meaning, you don’t need to insert a gallery block just to be able to add a photo gallery to your post. No. [cite: 215]

You use ACF, and inside your post you put an “Add Photos” field. [cite: 216]

It gets much easier for the client to understand than using that short tag. [cite: 217]

The guy creates a gallery in NextGen Gallery, copies a short tag and pastes it into the WordPress text field? [cite: 218]

No. He’s not going to do that. He has a field in the post saying: “Insert photos.” Done. [cite: 219]

And the coolest thing is that it has an add-on called Options, which allows you to create subpages. [cite: 220]

I even put the code here that it uses. In this case, I created a content section called Complements. [cite: 221]

And inside “Complements”, I put: Top highlights, Documents for download, Contact address. Because, for example, the contact address is something that appears repeatedly in the footer. [cite: 222]

Social networks too — they appear in the top and footer, constantly. So, I left this here for the client to fill out. [cite: 223]

Because generally, when the client asks for a website, they don’t even send you their Facebook link right away. [cite: 224]

In fact, they hardly send you anything right away. So, you leave everything for them to edit. Everything. [cite: 225]

Sometimes the email they send you, they haven’t even created yet, because you haven’t set up the server for them yet. [cite: 226]

Then what happens? You just leave the email field there. [cite: 227]

The address — sometimes the guy doesn’t even have a store yet, so you don’t even know what address to put. [cite: 228]

So, leave it open for him to edit too. Sometimes he wants to change the phone number, add a cell phone… so, Options is cool. [cite: 229]

It’s a paid add-on, but it’s cheap. And it’s worth it, because you can make the content appear on all pages. [cite: 230]

You don’t need to program anything. It’s just a little call. The field, you know? get_field(‘field_name’, ‘options’) — and you’re done. [cite: 231]

This field will appear on all pages where you call it, for example, in footer.php. [cite: 232]

It will always be there. It’s very easy to add additional content. For example, here I put “Complements” and “Top Highlights”. [cite: 233]

Easy. The client knows that’s over there on the home page. [cite: 234]

And if he wants to use these highlights on several other pages, it’s all in one single place. [cite: 235]

He doesn’t need to keep using WP_Query to keep calling the highlight posts on every page, in a loop. [cite: 236]

He doesn’t need to. This right here solves it. Here’s roughly how it appears. [cite: 237]

So, you have: phone, email, alerts (as I said, I put it here too), links to social networks… You also have a repeater field — meaning, if the guy wants to add several social network links on demand, he can. [cite: 238]

So, this here is a lifesaver. And finally, the file hierarchy — which is very important too. [cite: 239]

When I said you can have a category with one layout and another category with another layout — which was a question I was asked recently — what happens? [cite: 240]

It’s very simple. Even when I explained to the person how to do it, they said: — “Man, is that it? You don’t need to write anything?” [cite: 241]

No. It really is simple. Did you create a category called photos? Then you’re going to create the file category-photos.php. [cite: 242]

— “Ah, but I put event-photos as the slug for my category…” Okay. Then it will be: category-event-photos.php. Done. [cite: 243]

Every time you access the “event photos” category, WordPress will check if this file exists. [cite: 244]

If it exists, it will display the HTML you prepared. If it doesn’t exist, it goes to the default template. [cite: 245]

Meaning, you don’t need to create one for all categories. You only create it for the ones you want to differentiate. [cite: 246]

For the others, let it go to category.php. This was even a talk that Guga Alves gave, talking about file hierarchy. [cite: 247]

Later on, I’ll even share the PPTD link — it’s interesting material. [cite: 248]

In other words, this applies not only to categories but also to individual posts (single) and pages. [cite: 249]

If you want a single post to look different, you put single-slug.php or page-slug.php. [cite: 250]

And only that page will have that differentiated visual. This is for those who want to make more elaborate layouts, where each category has a listing and a different appearance. [cite: 251]

That’s how it works. For example, here I put an example where we have: “News” category page, “Photos” category page. Both are categories, they are listings. [cite: 252]

But here I put one layout, and there I put another. [cite: 253]

You can clearly see how you can have total control over each page. And I think that’s it. [cite: 254]

— Herick, going back to the previous slide… you were talking about customized pages for categories and singles. [cite: 255]

You talked about customizing the single for a specific post, but what about when we want to customize all posts from a certain category? [cite: 256]

Is there an ideal solution for that? — Look, I’ll tell you that I even talked to Guga about this at the time, because I had the same doubt. [cite: 257]

I think, in terms of files, there isn’t. You will have to use PHP there, you will have to try to decode… It could be that I’m wrong, because this already gets into a more technical part than I’m used to using. [cite: 258]

Maybe someone here can complement this better. But what I believe is that you need to identify the post’s category, and from there, apply a visual — maybe throw that into a variable — and with that variable pull a specific CSS style, or even use an if condition to load a different layout. [cite: 259]

This will require some sort of programming, because there is nothing predefined in WordPress that automatically links a single.php to a category just by the file name. [cite: 260]

— Herick, good afternoon. You were talking about personalization. Can we also personalize the header and footer in the same way? [cite: 261]

Do you put the header name, the category name, and it pulls it too? [cite: 262]

— She’s talking about pages within the category. It can be done too. [cite: 263]

You can, I don’t know exactly from memory right now, but yes, it can be done. [cite: 264]

It can be done for archive, it can be done for blog. [cite: 265]

Every page you put inside the category, it pulls it too. [cite: 266]

About what she said — a specific single for a certain category — maybe this is it: you have the “photos” category, and you want all posts in this category to use a given template. [cite: 267]

Is that it? She was trying to link a single post page to a category. [cite: 268]

So, in this case, as you said, there isn’t a specific file for this in the template hierarchy, as there is for other situations. [cite: 269]

But what can be done — which I’ve already done in a project — is the following: In single.php, you insert a code that identifies the category. [cite: 270]

And then do an if: — “If it is from the photos category and a single-photos.php file exists, load this file. If it doesn’t exist, load single-default.php.” [cite: 271]

Yes, you do that with get_template_part() and ask to include the file. [cite: 272]

Then you create single-photos.php to bring all posts from the “photos” category, single-videos.php for those in the “videos” category… And when it isn’t either of the two, it loads the default, which shows the post for all other categories. [cite: 273]

In the end, you are going to need some direct intervention in the code. There’s no magic at this point. [cite: 274]