Using a child theme with F2

Not that yours is not the correct approach, but certain changes can be made to the theme in order to make it child theme friendly. For example, I realize it’s not a good idea to leave style.css blank and dump all the styles in some css/screen.css. I’ll implement these changes and update the theme in a few days and hopefully it will then be easy to customize using child themes. Thanks for the feedback.

Srini,

Thanks – that would be terrific!

“Not that yours is not the correct approach” – I would welcome any suggestions you have. You may be referring to my use of the term “migrate”. If so, that was just a shorthand for implementing F2 2.0 on those sites without too much disruption to the current look & feel. What I’m actually doing is implementing a new, test site using WP 3.5 and F2 2.0, and figuring out how to re-create the changes I made using F2 1.1 in F2 2.0. Then I can upgrade the live sites and implement the necessary changes in F2 2.0. I’m taking the opportunity to explore and make improvements, but I have to be sure I don’t break anything I’m currently doing.

I happened to come upon F2 a couple of years ago when I was starting out. I liked the look and, between its flexibility and my limited time and experience, it’s been a great choice for setting up sites. Your original article on child themes got me started down that route. Thank you for that!

I’m a bit confused about child themes with F2. If I put some custom css in the child theme options page, it feeds back to the parent theme as well. Is this supposed to happen?

regards,

Robin.

I build a child theme to F2 (with a style.css in another directory), and it worked as it should. Now I have upgraded to F2 version 2.2.0 (with wordpress 3.5.1), and my child theme is broken. In fact, I can’t install any child theme at all. I don’t know how to fix it. Could you tell me, where I can get the former version?
With best regards,
Walter

@robin: Yes, that’s supposed to happen. There is no such thing as a separate child theme options page unless the child theme implements its own options page.

If you want your custom CSS to be applicable only to the child theme, I suggest you put that CSS in the child theme’s style.css, not via the ‘Custom CSS’ in options page.

@walter: Just as I mentioned in a previous comment in this thread, all styles are moved to the style.css in the parent directory of the theme as of version 2.2. No more css/screen.css or css/style.css. Simply put your custom stylings in style.css of the child theme, just as you would do with a child theme for any other theme, and it should work fine. Please provide more details if you still have problems.

2.2 was intended to be more child theme friendly, not the other way around.

Here are some details:
I had a child theme “F2 Child” in another “F2 Child” Folder, and in this Folder a “style.css” with the custom Styles. Worked very well.
With version 2.2, the child theme seems to be unable to find the styles of the original F2 theme (or may be the F2 theme at all) any more. When I switch to the original F2 theme and copy the styles of the child theme into the “custom.css” on the “Theme Options”-page, it works again. But that is only a workaround.
So the problem is obviously, that the connection from the child theme’s style.css to the original F2 theme is interrupted. I tried, whether it’s because of case sensitivness, but it didn’t work with F2 and with f2 too.
This is the Heading of my custom style.css:

/*
Theme Name: F2 Child
Description: Anpassung des F2-Theme für die WordPress-Installation der Kirchengemeinde – angepasst an den Look der bisherigen Website
Author: Walter Faerber
Template: f2
*/

I would appreciate any help, because the Theme ist very nice and worked very well für me with the former versions.
Walter

O, I got it:
In v. 2.2 it is now necessary to add “@import url(“../F2/style.css”)” in the custom “style.css”. Now it works again.