How to make a custom homepage

Let's face it, we all want to create some sort of splash with our homepage. More often than not, your basic site template will not be able to suffice. Also, it's unlikely you'll want people to have to go to /pages/1.php every time they type in your URL. On this page I'll describe two methods for putting your homepage at the root of your server.

Method 1: Homepage in the CMS

For most people, they'll still want to be able to have the homepage content managed by the CMS so that it can be edited remotely. In that case you'll just need to create a file in your root directory named index.php. The contents of that file should be:

<?PHP header("Location: /pages/1.php"); ?>

This will bounce users over to your CMS page when they type in your domain name. If you want to create a page that has a a unique look, create a template specifically for your homepage.

Method 2: Completely manual page

If you need to put together a page that has a lot of completely manual elements, just create a file in your root directory named index.php and create it as you would create any regular old homepage. If you want to get access to the simple common functions, add this code to the start of your page:

<?PHP
$CurrentPageID = 1;
include_once("/include/pagestart.php");
?>

Last, you'll need to make sure the CMS knows where your custom page is, so log into the CMS and edit the homepage. In the Redirect URL field, type /index.php and publish. Now when anybody clicks on the homepage in a menu it will bounce them to your manually generated page.