How to reuse Loop ? get_template_part() or? - loops

Question

I want to use the same Loop and Pagination for
index.php , search.php , and archive.php
However, for search.php I want a title "Search Results" to appear before the Loop
and for archive.php I want a title "Archive Page" to appear before the Loop.
Method A
Keep index.php, search.php, and archive.php
And use get_template_part() for navigation and Loop ?
Method B
Just use index.php
but how?
Or is there a simpler method since all I want is to add a title before the Loop?
Simple code for the sake of this example:
index.php
<?php
if ( have_posts() ) : while ( have_posts() ) : the_post();
the_excerpt();
endwhile; endif;
?>
code for Pagination
search.php
<h2>Search Results</h2>
code for The Loop
code for Pagination
archive.php
<h2>Archive Page</h2>
code for The Loop
code for Pagination

Answer 1

I don't know the exact structure of your pages, but I would place the code in header.php. Here is my thought on this
The header is common to all of these templates, and I would suspect that you are going to need these titles between your header stuff and the content area
Target pages with conditional tags . Open your header, and right down at the bottom, add something like this
if(is_search()) {
//your title for search page etc
} elseif(is_archive()) {
//your title for archive page
} else {
//display nothing if you don't need to display any custom title
}
Just add the necessary mark up and style accordingly
EDIT
It seems that you are still very new to php. From your comment
Weird. I put <?php if(is_search()) { <h2>Search Results</h2> } ?> at very bottom of header.php but got White Screen. So instead, I put it in index.php and deleted search.php but still White Screen. I tested it in my theme and Twentytwelve. ---------- Can you help me understand... Does less php files equal to a faster website? Is reducing the amount of php files considered best practice? So if index.php , search.php , archive.php uses the same code except for a title "Search Results" and "Archive Page" - is it best practice to simply have one php file and do conditional statements for titles?
Your problem is switching between php and html elements. Whenever you switch from php to html, you need to close your php tag (?>)before your html element. On the otherhand, you need to open a new php tag (<?php) right after your last html element and before your first php element.
Not doing this correctly will lead to a synatx error, which causes a white screen of death.
So in short, your code will need to look like this for it to work properly. Note the php tags
<?php
if(is_search()) { // this part is php
?> <!-- Close php because whe're switching to html -->
<h2>Search Results</h2> <!-- this part is html -->
<?php // open new php tag as we're switching to php again
} elseif(is_archive()) { //same sequence above applied
?>
<h2>Archive Page</h2>
<?php
} else {
//display nothing if you don't need to display any custom title
}
?>
Less php files does not mean a faster website, speed is determined by content, content type, database queries, amount of queries, etc etc. A one page website can be slower than a 10 page website.
What I've done with this code and why I placed it in the header is just to keep the code together. You can split it up as you wish. There is no best practice. What really counts is readability, accesibility, not repeating code over and over, and keeping a proper file system

Answer 2

You could output the title before you start the loop. The contents of the loop would be called using get_template_part(). For example:
if ( have_posts() ) {
// Output the title.
the_title();
// Begin loop.
while ( have_posts() ) {
the_post();
get_template_part( 'loop', 'index' );
}
}
Update: Using just index.php to display a title conditionally, you would do this:
if ( is_search() ) {
// Display the search page title here.
} else if ( is_category() ) {
// Display the category title here.
}
Ref: http://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/get_template_part