Sometimes creating a page within WordPress can be frustrating because it reformats the post and will sometimes break links or cause things not to display correctly. It can also be difficult to display videos or buttons within a page if you use the rich text editor built into WordPress.

One thing I typically do in these situations is to create a custom page template for certain pages where I need more control over how it displays. One example of this is my advertising page which was created using this method. I wanted to use Paypal buttons for each type of advertisement, and I wasn’t able to do this within the rich text editor that WordPress offers.

So, here is what you need to do. As a quick note, you will need some very basic HTML coding knowledge to write your page by hand, and you will want to make a backup of your theme before attempting this for the first time.

What I did was make a copy of the page.php file within my theme. That is because WordPress uses the page.php file when creating your themes pages. Rename the copy whatever you want, as long as it isn’t already in use (I just went with advertise.php in my situation). Now you will need to name the PHP file. Once that is done, go to the middle of the PHP file you’ve created and delete out the content code, which usually looks something like this:

<?php the_content(__('[Read more]‘));?>

This code might vary a little based upon the theme you are using, so it may not appear exactly like this. Now, you’ll want to paste the text/code you want to use on your custom page. Once you’ve got it how you want it, you’ll want to upload it to your site.

The next thing you need to do is to create a new page in your WordPress dashboard like you normally would. Once you’ve created a title, leave the rich text editor blank and go to the Page Template drop-down box in the right menu. Locate the named page you created earlier in the drop-down menu and select it. Now publish your page.

You’re done! Go check your site to see how it looks and make adjustments as needed.

Hopefully I explained this well enough. If you have any questions, please post them below and I’ll do my best to answer them, or will update the post accordingly.

There are quite a premium WordPress themes out there these days, but there are still quite a few niches out there where there really isn’t a premium theme to fill that need.

Brian has taken a step towards filling one of these niches with the release of his new Real Estate Revolution theme, which appears to be his most requested theme design.  Here are the features Brian lists for this new theme:

• Featured listing section, about me section and recent blog posts on the homepage
• Dropdown navigation menu
• Short contact form in the sidebar
• Page template for real estate listings

And here are the screenshots:

Real Estate Homepage

Real Estate Page Template

This theme follows the same pricing as his previous Revolution themes.   You can get the single-use package for $79.95 or the multiple-use package for $199.95.  Check out Revolution Real Estate.

Here at Hack WordPress, we pride ourselves on bringing you all sorts of WordPress hacks, theme and plugin reviews, and we also try to create some good WordPress discussions whenever possible.

One thing I get asked a lot is why I link out to other people so often. The answer is fairly simple. There are a lot of people that are as passionate about WordPress as I am, and these people do great work. Some are other “WordPress niche” blogs, while most are just bloggers who occasionally write about WordPress on their blogs. Either way, I don’t look at them as competitors, but rather as other WordPress enthusiasts and I try to give their posts some additional exposure.

One thing I’ve been planning to do is to create a resources page for this site which collects other great WordPress resources. For now, the list will be limited to WordPress niche blogs and web designers that use (and write) about WordPress, but it may expand in the future if I can incorporate other blogs that cover WordPress and still keep the page both useful and manageable.

Here is where I’m hoping you can help me out. I’ve got about 15 blogs in my feed reader and I know there are a lot more than that. If you run a WordPress blog, you are a WordPress designer with a personal blog and write about WordPress, or you are a reader and have a few favorite WordPress blogs you enjoy reading, can you drop me some links in the comments below? That way I can put together a list for my WordPress resources page.

I’m going to try to get the blogroll put together this weekend (hopefully with feeds as well) and will also do a follow up post to give these blogs some more exposure.

Update: You can now check out our WordPress Resources page.

I figured the title of this post would probably catch everyone’s attention!  

Generally speaking, I am not one of those people that gets anal about spelling.   I always make a conscious effort to spell things correctly and use words in the proper context, but it usually doesn’t bother me when I’m reading someone else’s work and things are misspelled (wrong “there”, etc.).  I’m sure some of my published works even have misspellings from time to time.   For whatever reason, however, I have noticed that a lot of people don’t seem to know how to properly spell WordPress. 

Do you know how to spell WordPress?  For those that never really gave it any thought, WordPress is spelled with a capital “P” in the middle.   Now, it doesn’t really bother me so much when bloggers misspell WordPress on their blogs, but with the recent explosion of WordPress blogs, it does bother me a little that these WordPress bloggers don’t even know how to properly spell the product that their blog is focused on.

When you write about WordPress on one of your blogs, are you spelling WordPress correctly?

In addition to getting used to the new look and feel of the WordPress dashboard in WordPress 2.5, the second major adjustment you’ll probably have to make is getting used to the WordPress write panel (for those that write their posts within the dashboard).

I’ve probably written over 100 posts since upgrading to WordPress 2.5 across my blogs and I can honestly say I’m still not used to it.  I usually adapt very quickly to change, but I’ve already noticed that I often forget to assign the category to my posts because the category panel is out of sight.  I end up having to edit the post after being published to correct these types of things.  I also do not like the way recommended tags now work in this addition, and I want to be able to save and continue editing. 

Other than that, this edition is a huge improvement over the old write panel and makes software like Windows Live Writer less attractive.    How do you like the new WordPress write panel?

Also, if you haven’t made the switch yet, you may want to check out this post written by a guest blogger over at Michael Martine’s blog named Knowing Your Way Around the WordPress Write Panel.   This post was designed to introduce you to everything the new WordPress write panel has to offer, and compares it to where everything was in WordPress 2.3.3 and earlier. 

What better day than April Fool’s Day for the next installment of WordPress talk?  I assure you that there are no jokes in these WordPress-related posts from around the blogosphere:

• The WordPress Expert offers 7 tips for the WordPress “Write Post” page. This post covers a few different things to keep in mind when when writing your posts within the WordPress dashboard.
• Performancing covers tips on upgrading your WordPress versions. Basically, the idea of this post is to remind people that upgrades may cause theme or plugin compatibility problems, so it is recommended that you test both on a subdomain/directory first before making the upgrade for your live site.
• Smashing Magazine has released 20 more great WordPress themes. What can I say? I’m a sucker for theme galleries! That is why I have so many of them.
• Daily Blog Tips has posted about a WordPress plugin called cformsII.
• Webware covers their 5 favorite features of WordPress 2.5.  I would also probably rank one-click upgrades as my favorite addition. 
• Aaron of TechnoSailor shares his WordPress FAQ presentation from WordCamp Dallas.  This is great for anyone that wasn’t able to attend the event.