WordPress Themes

Child Themes

• Don’t make changes to parent theme, create a child instead.
• But if many changes are made, may be best to make parent theme, to avoid future code depreciation.

Child Themes Process

• Create a new folder in wp-content/themes
• Best Practice: Same name as parent with -child appended.
• Create style.css

  [php]
  /*
  Theme Name: Twenty Thirteen Child
  Theme URI: http://example.com
  Description:
  Author:
  Author URI:
  Template: twentythirteen
  Version: 0.1.0
  */
  [/php]

  • Must at least include Theme name and Template, the latter being that of the parent theme directory.
• Create a functions.php file
  • Does not overwrite, instead loaded in addition to parent theme functions.php.
  • Loaded before parent theme.
• Inherit Styles
  • Don’t have to do this if you want to write CSS from them ground up, just keeping the same base template.
  • @import url (“../twentythirteen/style.css”);
• Add Template Files
  • Best Practice: Copy the parent theme template file and make modifications in child theme.
  • Useful Plugins: What the File, What Template File Am I Viewing?, and Debug Bar.
• Including Other Files
  • Must include the directory path when accessing other files.
    <?php require_once( get_stylesheet_directory() . ‘/my_included_file.php’ ); ?>
    <img src=”?php echo get_stylesheet_directory_uri(); ?>/images/mypicture.png”>
• Enqueue Styles and Scripts
  • Each should be enqueued in its own function.
  • add_action( ‘wp_enqueue_scripts’, ‘my_plugin_add_stylesheet’ );
    function my_plugin_add_stylesheet() {
    wp_enqueue_style( ‘my-style’, get_stylesheet_directory_uri() . ‘/style.css’, false, ‘1.0’, ‘all’ );
• Using add_theme_support to add additional post-formats overwrites the parent themes enabled formats, not add.