Community Forums › Forums › Archived Forums › General Discussion › How To Update Modified Child Themes
Tagged: child theme update
- This topic has 7 replies, 5 voices, and was last updated 10 years ago by LocalSearch.
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July 1, 2013 at 1:54 pm #48732txsrdainMember
What is the best method/proactive for updating child themes to the most current and mobile responsive version (without overwriting and deleting any modifications made to a child theme functions file, css file, etc.)?
July 1, 2013 at 4:14 pm #48750Doak HeggenessMemberJuly 2, 2013 at 9:51 am #48834txsrdainMemberMinimum, News and Enterprise are currently used.
July 2, 2013 at 11:50 am #48851Doak HeggenessMemberThere is no silver bullet. I would....
1) Backup your site.
2) Open up both style.css files and go line by line and see if there are differences. Selectors may have been changed too. You cannot take your style.css from one and just copy it over to the other as there may have been changes.
3) Any modifications you made to the original theme need to be added to the 'media queries' ( as they do not exist there ) section of the stylesheet to make it mobile responsive.
Doak Heggeness, WordPress Development | Website
July 4, 2013 at 9:36 am #49187sokratesagogoMemberMove all your child theme modifications into a "core-functionality" plugin e.g. http://www.billerickson.net/core-functionality-plugin/
“I toast, therefore I am”
July 4, 2013 at 9:55 am #49194nickthegeekMemberchild themes aren't really intended to be updated. For example, lets say you made a custom Minimum 1.0 theme and saw Minimum 2.0 then wanted to update. If you do this your customizations will be lost. Even if you use a core functionality plugin the CSS and some of the functions won't be relevant. This is because the home page markup is pretty dramatically different and the way the CSS works in Minimum 1.0 is dramatically different from 2.0.
It is best to think of them as two different child themes. You can apply your customizations manually but not automatically.
That said, a core functions plugin is a great idea. I like to ask myself which code should be available in all themes then put that into a plugin. Code for custom fields, posts types, and stuff like that belongs in a core functions plugin. Template files, widget areas, and things like that are usually theme specific. There are times when there are templates and widget areas associated with those that will apply to any Genesis child theme, I pull those into a second plugin that loads on a genesis_init hook so if the client switches to a non Genesis theme the site doesn't break.
July 4, 2013 at 10:19 am #49202sokratesagogoMemberThanks Nick 🙂
“I toast, therefore I am”
March 5, 2014 at 12:01 pm #93543LocalSearchMemberSo, being a non-coder...
...if there's enough reason/benefit for Studiopress to release an official updated child theme...yet, there's no built in way of installing the new child theme version on top of the old version (like WP updates) without losing any customizations...
...and "It is best to think of them as two different child themes"...
Why not just make the new child theme file name (e.g. agency-pro301.zip vs agency-pro300.zip) entirely different than the predecessor...so it can be installed along side the predecessor...so we can activate/switch back and forth between the separate child theme versions...to accommodate the process of making customizations to the new version?
Thanks
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