Drupal 7- How to make a custom module for only front page?

so..I created page--front.tpl.php in my theme directory and it works fine.

now, how do I make a variable that can be used in the page--front.tpl.php?

I can write my php codes inside page--front.tpl.php, but I think there is a better way.

added:

on the front page, I am going to query video and news nodes ONLY. That is why I want to make a new module for only fr开发者_开发问答ont page.

any suggestions?

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I'm not sure what you are trying to achieve here, but OK. You have two options: one is what you're doing now. Write your custom PHP in page--front.tpl.php and you'll be fine. The other is ditching the file and working only with page.tpl.php.

The variable $is_front tells you whether you're on the front page. You can write custom PHP in a conditional block: if ($is_front) { ... }.

Also, you can create a custom block (a view, perhaps, depending on your needs) and set its display restrictions to "only on the listed pages" - and list there. You'll have a custom view loaded only on the front page.

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All you need to do have a custom front page is configure your front page in the site information settins (admin/settings/site-information in D6).

Creating a module to display that content is then a completely different thing.

What I would really suggest is looking at Views if you don't know it already. That allows you to build lists of things (nodes, users, ...) and expose them as pages, blocks, rss feeds and much more. You can create a list of nodes with types video and news, expose that as a page and then just point your front page to the path of your view.

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you might try using the views module to create your list of videos and nodes. You can set a views page to be your homepage in the site settings.