Assuming adding this post doesnt bugger it up, ive got my sandbox site (click me revert back from sandbox :-) - Its not really a separate site, more of a theme. Well OK, its not at all a separate site and most definitely a theme. I did it this way as then its _live_) up to a decent stage now. My last stumbling block with the filtering of posts I managed to fix by separating the content of index.php into home.php and archive.php which removed the need for all the is_home() and is_archives() conditionals so thereby simplified the files greatly, but meant duplication so means I have to edit more files - shame.
This leads me nicely to a question. What exactly does index.php do if you are using archive.php, home.php, index.php etc?
This useful page says
The elements you are already using can just be removed from the index.php file and moved into the appropriate file such as adding your sidebar contents to sidebar.php and your footer contents to footer.php, etc.
so Im _assuming_ that means that index.php can be empty. Well, this is mine and it seems fine atm.
So, my final quandary. Do I make this the active theme now, or see what else I can do? I think I shall leave as is for now. The danger being that 'as is' will probably continue for a while.
I should point out that the idea for the latest post more prominent than the older posts owes more than a little inspiration to Phu Ly's If..Else site.
A ha, Ive got it, with index blank, these pages go bonkers, well sort of, its the home.php file. WP uses index.php by default for this page so if index.php is blank it uses home.php. So Ill stick archive.php in there and hit refresh... :-D
Hmm, that didnt work .. entering debug mode.
exiting debug mode...
adding this to the top of home.php if (is_paged()) { load_template(get_paged_template()); } else ...rest of home.php and then using the contents of archive.php in paged.php seems to work. Seems if you have home.php and paged.php, WP favours home.php *over* paged.php even if youre on a paged page for some reason.
