WP Themes - Parent, child......???

Although I haven't published any posts yet, I went into my dashboard tonight to review the various themes I'm considering. One theme has an update and this message was posted above it:

Please Note: Any customizations you have made to theme files will be lost. Please consider using child themes for modifications.

What? My customizations will be lost? I looked at the instructions for using a child theme and it looks like Greek to me! I don't understand code. What's the use of customizing a theme if it will be lost when I update it? Am I analyzing too much also (like Eileen??)

The customizations they are referring to are those made in the CSS, functions.php or other theme files. So if you changed the font or the header size for example in those files, any update to the theme will overwrite those files. Otherwise theme updates won't affect you.

Web designers who take a theme and make such customizations create or use what they call a "child theme". That's simply additional files that contain the customizations and refer back to the "parent" for the original files not changed.

It's important to update your themes and plugins especially if the updates have security fixes. Once you decide on a theme, you should delete all the others except the ones that come with WordPress (Twenty Ten and Twenty Eleven).

Thank you Christine. That makes me feel better. I don't have enough knowledge to make those changes yet! I finally went public and still have some issues with the way my site looks that I'm trying to work through.

Tanya,

I'm down the rabbit hole of child themes trying to learn what they are and how to use them. It is most definitely still 'geek' to me too. When you eventually get to where you will want to make those changes even without what you think is enough "knowledge", try the simple ones first, like changing a single font size. :)

Christine - can I take this a little further. I've avoided this Child theme thingy for a while because whenever I started to read about it, none of it makes any sense. It's now become one of those things that I avoid.

We use Optimize Press as a theme - we have customized most things and whilst we haven't had to update it yet, the time will come I'm sure.

I use a plugin for backing up the database (I think). All plugins are up to date.

What is your best advice for someone in our position. the site isn't big yet, but this does need to be resolved I know.

Thank you.

Caroline
PS. Whilst I'm not a technophobe, my skill is with people ;)

I want to use WP's Twenty Eleven theme on my new blog, but I need to make some changes, such as to the space above the header. I've been reading about child themes and understand their purpose. But do I only copy and modify the style.css file?

I know a little about HTML but have never worked with CSS or PHP. Can anyone point me to some good reference sites or articles?

Thanks!

Shawn

@ Shawn The blank child theme at http://quirm.net/themes/twenty-eleven-child/ might help you.

@ Caroline -- Sorry I totally missed your question back in August. You probably have figured it out by now, but Optimize Press gives you boxes for customized CSS on the General Settings page for the entire site, but also on each page editor as well.

Thanks, Christine, that did give me a starting point.

Now I have a new question. So far I've made changes to the stylesheet to remove the white space above the header and the search box.

To change the footer, my research says I need to copy the Twenty Eleven footer.php file and alter it. Should I copy all of the files from the main theme to make the changes?

Thanks for any help you can give me!

Shawn

Yes, I believe copying footer.php into your child theme folder is the correct action for changing content. If you just want to change styling, I think you would just need to add #site-generator or #site-generator a to your child theme stylesheet.

Thanks, Christine, for the speedy response. I am getting confused and trying not to lose my momentum.:)

This forum ROCKS!

Shawn