I'm making a custom theme. It's a highly specialized theme to make WordPress into like an application rather than a CMS system or blog. For instance, a Dental Office Scheduling System (with CMS and widget capabilities), as an example.

Because my theme needs pretty URLs to work properly, something I really need is for the .htaccess file to be that default that gets created only when someone sets Permalinks to Custom (and then types in something like %postname%). How do I trigger that in WordPress, programmatically, so that it creates this? I mean, I could probably overwrite the file myself during theme activation, but the better thing would be to use the WordPress API for it.

I'm making a custom theme. It's a highly specialized theme to make WordPress into like an application rather than a CMS system or blog. For instance, a Dental Office Scheduling System (with CMS and widget capabilities), as an example.

Because my theme needs pretty URLs to work properly, something I really need is for the .htaccess file to be that default that gets created only when someone sets Permalinks to Custom (and then types in something like %postname%). How do I trigger that in WordPress, programmatically, so that it creates this? I mean, I could probably overwrite the file myself during theme activation, but the better thing would be to use the WordPress API for it.

• theme-development
• permalinks
• htaccess

• "my theme needs pretty URLs to work properly" why? – chrisguitarguy Commented Dec 20, 2011 at 22:40
• @ChristopherDavis because it's an app theme, not a regular theme. I have an MVC framework loaded inside a theme folder that operates heavily on rewrites. – Volomike Commented Jan 10, 2012 at 3:49

3 Answers 3

To fully enable permalinks, you also need to ensure that .htaccess is also created. To do that, you need to set an option and flush the rules with a Boolean.

global $wp_rewrite; 

//Write the rule
$wp_rewrite->set_permalink_structure('/%postname%/'); 

//Set the option
update_option( "rewrite_rules", FALSE ); 

//Flush the rules and tell it to write htaccess
$wp_rewrite->flush_rules( true );

If you use this in a plugin, it needs to be in the init hook, not the load hook. If it's in the load hook, it will throw an error saying $wp_rewrite is null.

Important: You should also have a conditional so this is only set once. (You can create an option and check if it's set, if not then you run this permalink code and set that option)

I also typically check if it's the admin side and only run it if it is.

function change_permalinks() {
    global $wp_rewrite;
    $wp_rewrite->set_permalink_structure('/%postname%/');
    $wp_rewrite->flush_rules();
}
add_action('init', 'change_permalinks');

You may not need the action hook if you're sticking this in your theme activation function code.

I also found that this only slightly worked. You still have to click the Permalinks settings page for that .htaccess file to be created. So, what to do? Well, I found I could use an IFRAME that loads that page automatically for me from my theme's options panel, and then it would create that .htaccess file for me.

<iframe style="position:absolute;top:-5000px" src="<?= site_url() ?>/wp-admin/options-permalink.php"></iframe>

This is how I use this, to only occur when my theme is activated, and only if there is no pre-existing setting saved (to not break something done before my theme is used).

/*
 * Set permlinks on theme activate
 */
    function set_custom_permalinks() {
        $current_setting = get_option('permalink_structure');

        // Abort if already saved to something else
        if($current_setting) {
            return
        }

        // Save permalinks to a custom setting, force create of rules file
        global $wp_rewrite;
        update_option("rewrite_rules", FALSE);
        $wp_rewrite->set_permalink_structure('/news/%postname%/');
        $wp_rewrite->flush_rules(true);
    }
    add_action('after_switch_theme', 'set_custom_permalinks');

The advantage of this is that it will only run once when the theme is activated, not every time WordPress is loaded by a visit to the site.