When CSS is not enough — you want different markup, a different page shape, or extra content on the index — copy the template into your theme. Sohay then steps aside for that surface completely.
The files
Copy out of the plugin’s templates/ directory into a sohaychat/ directory
in your theme:
| Copy this | To here |
|---|---|
archive-sohaychat_kb.php |
yourtheme/sohaychat/archive-kb.php |
taxonomy-sohaychat_kb_category.php |
yourtheme/sohaychat/taxonomy-kb-category.php |
search-sohaychat_kb.php |
yourtheme/sohaychat/search-kb.php |
parts/{name}.php |
yourtheme/sohaychat/parts/{name}.php |
A conventionally named template in your theme root works too —
archive-sohaychat_kb.php, taxonomy-sohaychat_kb_category.php — and wins
for the same reason: naming the post type is being explicit about which
surface you mean.
What does not count as explicit is a generic archive.php. That is the
whole reason these templates exist: a reverse-chronological list of titles is
not a knowledge base.
Copy, do not edit in place
Edit the plugin’s own files and your changes disappear at the next update. The theme copy is the supported route, and it survives.
The parts
The templates are built from smaller parts, so you can often override one piece rather than a whole page. Each receives its data as ordinary local variables:
| Part | Receives |
|---|---|
header.php / footer.php |
— |
search-form.php |
the placeholder text and current value |
category-card.php |
one section |
section.php |
one section, and its articles |
article-list.php |
article IDs, and the articles |
A “section” is one category’s entry on the index — its name, description,
URL, total article count, the IDs actually being listed, and whether there
are more. category-card.php is the smallest useful thing to override: it is
one card, and it is what most index redesigns are actually about.
Block themes
If your block theme defines a template whose slug is archive-sohaychat_kb,
taxonomy-sohaychat_kb_category, or search-sohaychat_kb, Sohay leaves it
alone entirely. Core resolves block templates before the filters Sohay hooks,
so this is checked explicitly rather than left to chance.
Otherwise Sohay’s PHP templates render, with your theme’s own header and
footer template parts inside a document shell the plugin emits. Block themes
have no header.php for the classic template functions to find, and letting
WordPress fall back would print chrome belonging to no theme at all.
Where to go next
Restyling the Knowledge Base pages if a stylesheet would have been enough after all.
