UPDATE: I have removed Elementor from this site since this article was originally posted.
Since I have Elementor Pro installed at the WP Inn, I figured I should make some use of it. So I decided to use its Template feature to make a Single Post Template.
What you’re looking at is how that endeavor turned out. Whaddya think?
Setting Up a Single Post Template
Here’s how I went about making the design you currently see in my posts.
First, I went to the My Templates section of Elementor and clicked the Add New button.
Elementor then gave me several options from which to choose.
- Page
- Section
- Header
- Footer
- Single
- Archive
You might think there should be a Post option in that list, but there’s a reason that it’s missing. What I wanted here was the Single option. You’ll see why later.
A Small Glitch in Elementor
As of this writing, there is a tiny glitch in Elementor right at this point. If you hover over the little triangle (down arrow) at the right end of the dropdown box that contains the items in the list above, you can’t click to have the items actually drop down. Instead, you have to move off the triangle to the left before your cursor will turn into a hand-with-pointing-finger which means you can click and drop the list down.
Weird. (Actually, poor programming.)
Basic Selection Options
After selecting Single, another dropdown box appears. Here you have these choices.
- Post
- Page
- Media
- 404 Page
Ah! There’s the Post we were looking for earlier.
But wait! An option in the first list was Page. Why is Page listed again under Single?
If I had selected Page from the first list, the Template I would have created would have affected all the Pages on my site. If I select Page from the second list, only a single Page that I create would be affected. (At least, this is what I think the theory is behind all this. I haven’t actually tried it out.)
For many sites, this isn’t a very good option to choose. The reason is a long-term one.
What if, down the line, you decide to completely change the look of your site – perhaps even getting rid of Elementor all together? If you have templates that affect just a few Pages here and there, it’s going to be a lot of work managing them under a new site design.
Assuming I’m right about how this works, you can get the same effect by creating a Page (or Post) in the regular WordPress editor and then redesigning its look with the Elementor editor. Again, this is not a great idea, unless you either never ever (Never ever say, “Never ever.”) will change your site’s look or never ever get rid of Elementor.
The Final Post Product
Getting back to how I created the Post Template….
I gave it a name – the boring “Default Post Template” – and then selected a pre-made design from the library.
I could have made my own design from scratch, but I’m not that great at design. Be honest. Most of you aren’t either, so pick from something already made or have a pro make something new for you.
There were a bunch of elements in the pre-made design that I didn’t want, so I deleted them. I still kept the basic design which, again, is what you see here.
It’s not quite as consistent with the rest of the site as some might like, but it’s good enough for me.
Perhaps by the time you actually read this, I will have tweaked it some more. Sadly, you’ll probably never ever know.
