Learn to Create WordPress Themes by Building 5 Projects

Working on index.php for the content post

To simplify the index.php file, open the file in the editor and get rid of all the code present in it except the <?php get_header(); ?> and <?php get_footer(); ?> lines. This is how our index.php will look like:

<?php get_header(); ?><?php get_footer(); ?>

We will then check for posts and if there are posts, loop through them and spit out the correct content file. Now, we will add <?php if(have_posts()) : ?> and then we'll use the shorthand syntax as shown here:

<?php get_header(); ?><?php if(have_posts()) : ?><?php endif; ?>