Its painful to look everywhere for a little piece of code. Here I listed 30 commonly used snippets. Hope this helps people develop their themes.
Header
Meta
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="<?php bloginfo('html_type'); ?>; charset=<?php bloginfo('charset'); ?>" /> <meta name="generator" content="WordPress <?php bloginfo('version'); ?>" />
Dynamic title
<title> <?php if (is_home()) { echo bloginfo('name'); } elseif (is_404()) { echo '404 Not Found'; } elseif (is_category()) { echo 'Category:'; wp_title(''); } elseif (is_search()) { echo 'Search Results'; } elseif ( is_day() || is_month() || is_year() ) { echo 'Archives:'; wp_title(''); } else { echo wp_title(''); } ?> </title>
Link file:
<script type="text/javascript" src="<?php echo bloginfo('template_directory') .'/lib/jquery-1.3.2.js'; ?>"></script>
RSS
<div id="rss"> <a href="<?php bloginfo('rss2_url'); ?>" title="Subscribe to us"></a> </div>
List parent category only:
<?php wp_list_categories('sort_column=menu_order&depth=1&title_li=');?>
Display child category:
<?php if (is_category()){wp_list_categories('orderby=id&show_count=0&title_li=0&child_of='.$cat); }?>
List pages
<?php wp_list_pages('title_li=&depth=1') ?>
Display subpage:
<?php $children = wp_list_pages('title_li=&child_of='.$post->ID.'&echo=0'); if ($children) { ?> <?php echo $children; ?> <?php } ?> <?php if (is_category()){wp_list_categories('orderby=id&show_count=0&title_li=0&child_of='.$cat); }?>
Index
The Loop
<?php if (have_posts()) : ?> <?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?> ....... <?php endwhile; ?> <div class="navigation"> <span class="previous-entries"> <?php next_posts_link('Older Entries') ?> </span> <span class="next-entries"> <?php previous_posts_link('Newer Entries') ?> </span> </div> <?php else : ?> <h2>Not Found</h2> <p>Sorry, but you are looking for something that isn't here.</p> <?php endif; ?>
Post title plus permarlink
<h1><a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to <?php the_title_attribute(); ?>"> <?php the_title(); ?> </a></h1>
Display date categories and comment counts
<?php the_time('F jS, Y') ?> <?php the_category(',') ?> <?php comments_number('no comment','1 comment','% comments'); ?>
Edit post
<?php edit_post_link('edit','',''); ?>
Display highlight images with excerpt. This code displays random thumbnail images from media gallery.
<?php $args = array( 'post_type' => 'attachment', 'numberposts' => -1, 'post_status' => null, 'post_parent' => $post->ID, 'orderby' => 'rand' ); $attachments = get_posts($args); $noimages = count($attachments); if ($attachments) { foreach ($attachments as $attachment) { $alttxt = $attachment->post_title; $imgid = $attachment->ID; $fileurl = $attachment->guid; $meta = wp_get_attachment_metadata($imgid); $imgw = $meta['sizes']['thumbnail']['width']; $imgh = $meta['sizes']['thumbnail']['height']; $imgext = substr($fileurl, -4); $fileurl = substr($fileurl, 0, -4); $fileurl = $fileurl."-".$imgw."x".$imgh.$imgext; // construct the image echo "<img src='".$fileurl."' alt='".$alttxt."' class='alignleft highlightimg' />"; break; } } the_excerpt(''); ?>
Display tags
<?php the_tags('Tagged with: ',' • ','<br />'); ?>
Spread the word on twitter
<a href="http://twitter.com/home?status=Currently reading <?php the_permalink(); ?>" title="Click to send this page to Twitter!" target="_blank">Twitter</a>
Comment RSS
<a href="<?php comments_rss_link('RSS 2.0'); ?>" title="Comment RSS" target="_blank"> Follow responses</a>
Jump to comment form
<a href="#respond" title="To comment form" target="_blank">leave a response</a>
Trackback
<a href="<?php trackback_url(display); ?>" title="Trackback" target="_blank">Trackback</a>
Sidebar
Dynamic Sidebar
<?php if ( !function_exists('dynamic_sidebar') || !dynamic_sidebar('right-sidebar') ) : ?> <?php endif; ?>
Your own tag cloud code: the texts varies from 8px to 36px
<h2>Tags</h2> <?php wp_tag_cloud('smallest=8&largest=36&'); ?>
Monthly Archive
<?php wp_get_archives('type=monthly'); ?>
Footer
<div id="footer"> <div class="foot">© Copryright <?php bloginfo('title') ?> . All Rights Reserved.</div> <?php wp_footer(); ?> </div>
Other
Display certain page named ‘About’
<?php query_posts('pagename=about'); ?>
Include custom file
<?php include (TEMPLATEPATH . '/sidebar2.php'); ?>
Get posts in category 1 from out side a loop and store them as ‘feature posts’
<?php $feature_posts = get_posts('category=1&numberposts=5&orderby=post_name&order=DSC'); foreach($feature_posts as $post) : setup_postdata($post); ?> ...<?php endforeach; ?>
Get custom field(image url in this case):
<?php $image = get_post_meta($post->ID, 'image', TRUE); ?> <?php if($image) { ?> <img src="<?php echo $image; ?>" alt="Alt Text" /> <?php } ?> <?php //get article_image (custom field) ?> <?php $image = get_post_meta($post->ID, 'article_image', true); ?> <a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>"><img src="<?php echo $image; ?>" alt="<?php the_title(); ?>" /></a>
List Radom Posts
<ul> <?php $rand_posts = get_posts('numberposts=10&orderby=rand'); foreach( $rand_posts as $post ) : ?> <li><a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>"> <?php the_title(); ?> </a> <?php the_time('M d Y'); ?> </li> <?php endforeach; ?> </a> </ul>
List Posts in Category 1 and offset 1
<ul> <?php global $post; $myposts = get_posts('numberposts=10&offset=1&category=1'); foreach($myposts as $post) : ?> <li><a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>"> <?php the_title(); ?> </a> <?php the_time('M d Y'); ?> </li> <?php endforeach; ?> </a> </ul>
List posts with certain tag
<ul> <?php $myposts = get_posts('numberposts=10&tag=yourtagname'); foreach( $myposts as $post) : ?> <li><a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>"> <?php the_title(); ?> </a> <?php the_time('M d Y'); ?> </li> <?php endforeach; ?> </a> </ul>
List posts by dates (time followed by posts title):
It is good to use in date.php:
<li> <?php the_time('d.m.y') ?> | <a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a> </li>
Images
list all image attachments
<?php if ( have_posts() ) : while ( have_posts() ) : the_post(); ?> <ul><?php $post_parent = get_post($post->ID, ARRAY_A); $parent = $post_parent['post_parent']; $attachments = get_children( array( 'post_parent' => $post_id, 'post_type' => 'attachment', 'orderby' => 'menu_order ASC, ID', 'order' => 'DESC') ); foreach($attachments as $id => $attachment) : echo wp_get_attachment_link($id, 'thumbnail', true); endforeach; ?> </ul> <?php endwhile; else: ?> <p><?php _e('Sorry, no posts matched your criteria.'); ?></p> <?php endif; ?>
Functions
Register sidebars with names
<?php if ( function_exists('register_sidebars') ) register_sidebar(array( 'name' => 'sidebar', 'before_widget' => '<li id="%1$s" class="widget %2$s">', 'after_widget' => "</li>", 'before_title' => "<h3 class="widgettitle">", 'after_title' => "</h3>", )); register_sidebar(array( 'name' => 'yourname1', 'before_widget' => '<li id="%1$s" class="widget %2$s">', 'after_widget' => "</li>", 'before_title' => "<h3 class="widgettitle">", 'after_title' => "</h3>", )); register_sidebar(array( 'name' => 'sidebar2', 'before_widget' => '<li id="%1$s" class="widget %2$s">', 'after_widget' => "</li>", 'before_title' => "<h3 class="widgettitle">", 'after_title' => "</h3>", )); ?>
Code resources
- Smashing magazine
- Blogging tips
- Wordpress.org




Great stuff, especially the sidebar registering. I’ve always wondered how to get more hooks into the widgets!
Only thing is, there’s a misc. ‘n’ at the end of the ‘after_title’ value.
Thanks so much!
[Reply]
alexandra Reply:
May 5th, 2009 at 2:50 pm
Thanks for pointing out the mistake.
[Reply]
Great source
Is it my eyes or is the code for
List parent category only: the same as Display child category: and should it be??
I’m am very much a php learner!
[Reply]
alexandra Reply:
May 22nd, 2009 at 5:46 pm
thanks for pointing out. This post was messed up by a plug-in, I fixed it really quickly and made a mistake. I listed the child category code now.
[Reply]
great
would be great to make it a printable PDF!
[Reply]