Simon Wheatley

Provides a drop-down to select different templates for posts from the post edit screen. The templates are defined similarly to page templates, and will replace single.php for the specified post. This plugin will NOT switch the templates for the different posts in a listing page, e.g. a date or category archive, it will only affect the template used for single posts (i.e. you can choose a template which is not single.php).
Post templates, as far as this plugin is concerned, are configured similarly to <a href="https://codex.wordpress.org/Pages#Creating_Your_Own_Page_Templates" rel="nofollow ugc">page templates</a> in that they have a particular style of PHP comment at the top of them. Each post template must contain the following, or similar, at the top:
<pre><code><?php
/*
Template Name Posts: Snarfer
*/
?>
</code></pre>
First note: Page templates use “Template Name:“, whereas post templates use “Template Name Posts:“.
Second note: You must have the custom post template files in your theme in the same directory/folder as your index.php template file, not in a sub-directory/sub-folder.
<h3>Developers</h3>
If you want to implement the custom post templates on a custom post type, you can use the <code>cpt_post_types</code> filter, here’s an example below of adding the custom post template selector and metabox to the “Movie” and “Actor” custom post types. This code can be added to a plugin or to the <code>functions.php</code> file in your theme.
<pre><code>/**
 * Hooks the WP cpt_post_types filter 
 *
 * @param array $post_types An array of post type names that the templates be used by
 * @return array The array of post type names that the templates be used by
 **/
function my_cpt_post_types( $post_types ) {
 $post_types[] = 'movie';
 $post_types[] = 'actor';
 return $post_types;
}
add_filter( 'cpt_post_types', 'my_cpt_post_types' );
</code></pre>

Custom Post Template

Provides a drop-down to select different templates for posts from the post edit screen. The templates replace single.php for the specified post.

shazdeh

Just like the way you can create custom page templates, this plugin enables you to build category archive templates by adding this bit to the top of your file:
<pre><code><?php
/**
 * Category Template: Grid
 */
?>
</code></pre>
and when you’re adding or editing categories, you can choose the desired template file.
This plugin is maintained solely for backward compatibility. Try the new <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/custom-taxonomy-templates/" rel="ugc">Custom Taxonomy Templates</a> instead, it supports all taxonomies and also uses the new term meta feature in WP 4.4.

Custom Category Templates

Define custom templates for category views.

Custom Post Template vs Custom Category Templates