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What is a custom template?

The purpose of templates is to write something once that can generate thousands of different html pages for you. WSN's template conditionals syntax gives you the power to make a single template behave in many different ways. That being said, you may run across times that require something unique to fit a specific set of circumstances. That is when custom templates can be useful.

Avoid creating large numbers of custom templates -- if you're making dozens of them, odds are you should be using conditionals instead to save yourself a ton of time now and in the future. So don't go about creating a custom template for each forum, or the like. Contact support if unsure how to proceed.

There are two basic types of custom templates: custom templates which are new versions of existing tempaltes overlayed onto existing pages, and custom templates which create a new section of the site. In either case, you create your custom template at Admin Panel -> Themes -> Manage Templates -> custom templates. If it's a new version of an existing page, start by copying the existing page's template content into your custom template. If it's a new page, you can write your own content or generate some content for it from the toplist generator (Admin -> Themes -> Toplist Generator).

After you've created your custom template, you'll need to link to it from an appropriate spot. Simply add &custom=yes&TID=yourtemplatename to any existing page link (if URL rewriting is turned off -- appending this will not work if the URL is the rewritten version, so you'll want to temporarily turn off URL rewriting at Admin -> Settings -> SEO to get the correct URL). For example, to overlay on the index page or create a new site section you'd use the link <a href="index.php?custom=yes&TID=mycustompage">My custom page</a> for a custom template which you named mycustompage.