If you desire a custom front page template, one possible approach is to create a child theme and in its template folder, name your template file front-page.html. Or simply organize your front page’s content to be as you wish in the editor and let one of the theme’s page templates display it.
Not all theme templates are appropriate for pages. You see only theme defined templates that are appropriate. Custom templates added via the “create new template” option should also be available. If you customized templates through other means, they wouldn’t be visible in the page template dialog. However they could be used through other mechanisms such as the special front-page.html name.
The doc reference to Page Attributes panel applies to the classic editor. Template selection has been moved in the block editor.
The default page template for the 2025 theme should be “pages”, not “page-no-title”.
If you selected a static front page in reading settings, there’s not supposed to be a default. The front page should be which ever page you selected. If you do not select static front page, your front page will be a blog post archive listing.
Thread Starter
keress
(@keress)
I have been using a child theme of 2025 I created at the outset all along. In the Site Editor a Front Page template name is the first choice displayed when ‘Add New Template’ is clicked. I had created that and styled it as needed. The ‘Home’ page was set in Reading as the home page. There is a “Page” tab, next to the “Block” tab in the (Gutenberg) Page Editor. That Page tab (attribute panel) for that page has a dropdown, but it does not show ‘front page’ template as an option, in fact, there is no other template listed in the dropdown at all. In the ‘Quick Edit,’ in the listing of all pages, it does show “Page No Title” in the Template dropdown, so I copy and pasted all my Front Page content to that template in Site Editor, and set it as the ruling template in Quick Edit. I was not referring to there being a default page in Settings > Reading.
I was wondering if the template I’ve written, Front Page, would be considered the default for the page designated as the Home Page? I just noticed on another new site I’m doing, on the same server, the template in the “Page” tab is listed as Front Page. I don’t believe I did anything for that to happen.
I’m trying to figure out why this works easily in one case, and in another case, it’s a pain. What I could be doing differently in one instance that’s bypassing the ‘automatic’ process that’s apparently in place if I don’t do whatever that thing is I’m doing sometimes that’s messing it up. This has happened before. Perhaps there is some way to revise the code that avoids this blunder, whatever it is.
there is no other template listed in the dropdown at all
That’s normal in the template dropdown field, but the “Swap template” pick will launch a modal showing any available page templates besides the one in use, in a preview grid format. Any page templates you’ve created anew should appear in the modal as well. The templates shown in the modal should be the same that are visible in Quick Edit. For the 2025 theme, page-no-title is the only available page template besides the default.
For the site with a front-page template being shown as available, it’s either for a different theme or it was created by a user. I suppose it’s conceivable a plugin could add it’s own page templates, but templates are not normally within the purview of plugins.
Naming a template “Front Page” in the site editor does not automatically cause it to be used as the home page template. You need to explicitly assign it to your chosen home page. OTOH, naming a template file “front-page.html” in a child theme will cause it to automatically be used on the site’s front end. However, its usage will not be reflected in Gutenberg. Special template file names like this are a legacy feature that are not fully implemented in block themes.
While editing an existing template for use as front page would work, you potentially make it useless for its original purpose. Maybe its original purpose is of no interest right now, but things could change in the future. Now a generic no title template is no longer available, although you could always recreate one. Additionally, its title is now misleading and AFAIK we cannot rename theme templates.
Probably what you should have done is to create a new front page template fit for purpose and leave the theme templates alone. Unfortunately, we’re unable to start a new template from some other existing template. We are initially presented with a very generic template in the editor. Any fancy features we want on the new template would need to be created from scratch.
Thread Starter
keress
(@keress)
You wrote:
… the “Swap template” pick will launch a modal showing any available page templates besides the one in use, in a preview grid format. Any page templates you’ve created anew should appear in the modal as well. The templates shown in the modal should be the same that are visible in Quick Edit.
- The “Swap template” pick does not appear. It showed up once and I tried to use it, but the Front Page template I’d created wasn’t there. I’ve never seen it again.
- The new page template I created does not appear either.
- The templates in the modal are not the same as the ones in Quick Edit.
It does seem there’s something buggy going on.
Buggy indeed. I suspect there’s an issue with template inheritance by child themes. I’d expect parent theme templates to be inherited but it sounds like that’s not happening. As a test, try switching to the actual 2025 theme. You should see the template behavior I’ve described. IDK if the inheritance issue is a flaw in your child theme, or if lack of inheritance is by design, or if it’s an actual WP bug. I do know in classic themes that parent templates are inherited by the child. IDK about block themes.
If by chance you do not see expected behavior even with the actual 2025 theme, it’s then likely one of your plugins is interfering. Deactivate all plugins to confirm. Once confirmed, restore your normal plugins, one at a time, to identify which plugin was the cause.
