Wordpress plugin using existing theme

Question

I am building a plugin for the first time and I have setup my rewrite rules to call a PHP file I have located in my plugin folder and this is working but all I have it output just now is "test"

I wanted to ask, is there is a way of pulling in the existing theme and using this as the basis for the page, then I can have my plugin just output the page content area so to speak.

My plugin is quite big in terms of the amount of data it handles so I would like to be able to use a menu link to the aforementioned file and this file can then output all the sub pages of content but still using the default theme (theme I have made) and fill the content area only is this possible and if so is there anything to explain this already available because I couldn't see it.

Any help with this would be much appreciated.

Edit: I have tried including a file from my current theme but this will give me a 500 error so I assume its not as simple as this.

Personally, I can't really see the picture without seeing the code. And if this is pure WP development, I'd consider posting at WordPress Development (but, please, don't cross-post). — brasofilo
Well essentially I have a plugin which lets the user put in property developments, house styles, maps, floors, plans, PDF's etc etc I made my own tables for these and this part is all done, now I could output pages using shortcode but that would mean making each page. So I have written a re-write rule to point to a file in my plugin folder, this is a bare PHP file at the moment just outputting "test" but is there a way I can pull wordpress theme files into this so I don't need to rebuilt my entire theme etc? — Sam

Shellbot Shellbot · Accepted Answer · 2013-11-12T14:27:24

Have you thought about using custom post types for your plugin content rather than relying on custom tables and separate code?

Other than that, you could use a shortcode (just one) and have users insert that into a regular WP page, the shortcode then displays all of your various plugin stuff.

It's hard to be more specific without understanding why you've done it this way.

Wordpress plugin using existing theme

1 Answers