Child Theme Important Questions

  • I am all new to this Child Theme thing and have read a lot of resources online and still have not managed to get an answer to my questions.

    I was hoping the WP community might be able to shed some light on my questions.

    1. If I use a Child Theme, do I NEED to copy EVERY text that is within a file that I am editing.

    Example: I want to add a function to the function.php file. Do I need to copy everything from the Parent function.php file to the Child Theme File or will it fill in the blanks with the parent file?

    2. If for example ALL the files in the parent files update. Do I need to update my Child Theme files with the new info and re-add the changes to it?

    Thank you in advance

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)

  • No, You do not need to copy everything over for the functions.php. The parent functions.php is loaded and then the child functions.php is loaded after.

    The only time you need to update your child theme, is for security or compatibility reasons with the parent theme you are upgrading.

    Thread Starter Scholarty

    (@scholarty)

    Hi Justin,

    Awesome, so it loads Parents first then Loads Child over the top of parents.

    Meaning if there is nothing to overwrite load, it just uses the rest of the parents code.

    Updating child theme I am guessing to just copy the changes and paste it once updated?

    You are correct about how the Parent and Child themes load. If there is nothing to overwrite, then the parent theme will do whatever it is designed to do. This is why most child themes are very small compared to a stand alone theme.

    I am not following you about updating child themes.. If you update your parent theme, you may or may not have to update your child theme.

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
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