You could accomplish this with a rewrite endpoint and a template filter.
First, register a new rewrite endpoint for the page
post type:
function wpd_app_view_rewrite_endpoint() {
add_rewrite_endpoint( 'app-view', EP_PAGES );
}
add_action( 'init', 'wpd_app_view_rewrite_endpoint' );
Don’t forget to flush rewrite rules after adding this (or just visit the Permalinks > Settings page to do this without code).
Now you will be able to add app-view/
on the end of any page permalink URL, for example, your page will be domain.com/messages/app-view/
.
The next step is to detect when app-view/
is present, and load a different template in that case. For the page post type we use the page_template
filter:
function wpd_app_view_page_template( $template ) {
global $wp_query;
if( isset( $wp_query->query_vars['app-view'] ) ) {
$template = locate_template( array( 'app-view-template.php' ) );
}
return $template;
}
add_filter( 'page_template', 'wpd_app_view_page_template' );
This checks if query_vars['app-view']
is set in the global $wp_query
object, and loads the app-view-template.php
template in this case. This will only be true when the app-view
rewrite rule matches the current request.