WordPress Theme: Log In On The Front Page

While there have been many people customizing the login page of WordPress, and others trying to put it in a page, I haven’t seen too many blogs that allow you to log in to WordPress via the blog’s front page. The log in form on wp-login.php is a simple form that you can pull from the page, and put just about anywhere.

Recently, for a client, I had to put that form on their WordPress theme, so they could bypass the wp-login.php page, and go right from the blog to the administration panel, and it is easier than you might think.

*Note: Doing this can cause issues later on as WordPress is a constantly evolving piece of software. This may not work on future versions.

Getting the Code

The first thing we need to do is to get the form’s code from wp-login.php. In the folder you installed WordPress in, you will see the file named wp-login.php in the root folder. Download the file, and open it up in your text editor of choice. I am using Mac OS X, and Smultron.

Around line 347 you will find the log in form we will need.

[php]

[/php]

If you don’t want your visitors to be remembered, you can remove this line and again, it shouldn’t cause any adverse effects.

Implementing It

This leaves you with a basic form, which we can then insert into any area of our WordPress theme. The sidebar or header being the two places that make the most sense. In the client work I did, we put it in their header, right next to the navigation for their blog.

Open your theme folder, you can find it under wp-content/themes and then download the place where you plan on putting your login form, either sidebar.php or header.php.

Copy and paste your edited form to where you want it go be.

My form code is as follows:
[php]

-->