How to cleanup web site and unused template files

  • Resolved jonny cakes

    (@jonny-cakes)


    10 years, 8 months ago

    Hi,

    I’m taking over the maintenance of a WordPress website developed by another programmer. I have only basic familiarity with WordPress but good skills with HTML, CSS, PHP, and SQL. I’ve been poking around the site and it looks messy (or at least messier than I’m used to). I’m familiar with the approach of creating a child theme with customized page templates and CSS to customize a WordPress site… that’s good practice, right?

    In the wp-admin theme settings, it says: “Current Theme: Twenty Eleven”. But looking in the “wp-content/themes/” folder, the files are actually in a folder called “abc”. This folder contains LOTS of files, so I think the original developer copied the entire 2010 theme and then just modified whatever files he needed.

    1. With child themes, I’m used to seeing only the files that were overridden. I would like to clean up the current state of affairs, but how would I know which files are being used or not? Using the wp-admin to edit pages, I can see that all the pages are using the “Default Template” (even though the dropdown list contains a bunch more options). But there are lots of pages… is there any way to see a list of all the files being used so I can delete the others?

    2. Would anyone suggest converting this into a child-theme?? Is it safe to do so, or do I risk breaking something for little benefit?

    Thanks for your help, and I hope by the end of this I’ll be that much closer to loving WordPress. ??

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)

  • Being in a renamed folder, it’s basically a standalone theme at this point (it shouldn’t receive updates from the WordPress backend, for example), and you’re likely correct that it’s a complete copy of the original theme. There’s no way to know what files were modified: it could be just the stylesheets, but any of the page templates could be involved. Without going line-by-line through the code, you have to assume that any file could be different.

    The good news is that since it’s a standalone theme, updates shouldn’t break anything. The bad news is that if you created a child theme of this modified version, you’ll still never get theme updates, etc. But to have a cleaner appearance and a way to tell what your changes are versus the previous developer, you could still create a child theme and contain all your work within it.

    There’s no surefire way to clean this theme up (except checking every file), but you can have a “clean” workspace by creating a new child theme until such time as you may redesign.

    Thread Starter jonny cakes

    (@jonny-cakes)

    That makes sense…

    Perhaps it was a deliberate attempt for the original developer to isolate his work and avoid updates causing issues things. I feel more confident about updating to the laster version of WP now.

    And a child theme sounds nice anyways to organize the files I work on. Maybe I’ll look into a DIFF utility if that complete ‘redesign’ day ever comes.

    Thanks for the tips!!

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)
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