Moving to a Child Theme

do you have a copy of the original (unchanged) theme to compare and see what has been changed in style.css and other theme templates?

I don’t. The only copy of the theme I have is the latest version, and the website was built with an earlier version. I don’t have a copy of that one.

Would that make it impossible to compare?

If I can compare it, how would I go about doing it? (newbie question!)

Thanks so much.

having the original theme would help to determine if there were many or just a few changes.

are there any comments in the style.css file that indiciate the changes done?

there are free text editors (ie notepad++) that have the ability to compare 2 files + highlight differences.

while I am an advocate of a child theme in most situations, some themes are meant to be used as a starting framework without creating a child theme.

which theme are you using?

The original developer made the css changes in the actual theme options editor (they have a “quick css” box for that). She also altered the footer.php. No comments anywhere that I can see.

Running the Propulsion theme.

(Sidebar: I don’t know if this is off-topic or not, but, updating the theme resets the readings settings.)

in my experience, updating the theme does not normally change reading settings in dashboard.

if there is a quick CSS box, that’s probably a good thing. since it sounds like an area that separates out the changes to original theme css.

if you can narrow down the changes in the original theme template files too, you are in the right direction.

if lots of areas of the website display are controlled in theme options space-might require a check into an area of database options. if you have access to webhosting and phpmyadmin, you can get to that area.

is there an export button for theme options? (not all themes offer this but I have seen it once or twice)

The update definitely changed the reading settings. I restored an old backup to try and get them back, but the reading settings were not restored to what they were before.

I have access to webhosting but have never worked in phpmyadmin (newbie!)

Nope, no export button, unfortunately.

if reading>settings selection changes with a theme change…that’s unusual. Might indicate some deeper function change in core files to connect to theme.

what exactly changed in reading settings?

backup files/database before diving into the database.

Changes to the readings settings:
The front page was set to display a blog roll. That’s totally gone now. Now it’s set to display latest posts, but something is off there that I need to investigate further.

Yes, always will backup.

I am worried about going into the database. Don’t have experience there yet (newbie!) Not even sure where to begin with that.

please share a link to your website that shows the “blog roll” so I can understand what you are referring to.

The blog roll is gone. It was there before the update.

It had been a year and a half since any updates, including WordPress. I’m wondering if the readings settings changed because of the WordPress update…didn’t blogroll used to show in older versions on the readings settings?

Anyway, there is no blogroll now on the website or in the readings settings.

Any thoughts on where to go from here on both fronts?

I don’t refer to anything in reading>settings as “blogroll”
For me “blogroll” is a term I use for external links of websites I like.
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Is the wrong content displaying on the front page?
Which WordPress version are you currently running?
Which version was running with the blogroll on reading settings?

I think I use a plugin for my “blogroll (external) links” on my website.

There isn’t a place to even refer to anything as blogroll in the reading settings anyway, is there?

No, the right content is displaying on the front page except that now it’s missing the right sidebar. I’ve checked the theme and it’s still set to right sidebar. No idea what happened.

We did a backup of the old site, but the right sidebar still doesn’t appear. That makes me think it went away with the WordPress update. Does that sound like something that could happen? Blog roll was definitely selected in the reading settings under “front page displays”. I don’t know how the two are related and can’t tell by looking at the theme.

Now the site is currently running WP version 4.4.2, so it’s up-to-date. I can’t remember what version it was previously running, something that was at least a year and a half old.

I don’t normally see changes to page layouts when I update the WordPress software version.

However, if you had a very old version of WordPress and a very old version of theme…..I suppose it’s possible that something was modified.

Since I have not seen the actual website before or after your updates, it’s hard me me to say exactly what is happening.

Thanks for your help. I really appreciate it.