losing a modification of my sidebar on every page if i upgrade to wp 3.4.2?

With that theme? Provided you ONLY chnaged a file in the theme/default/ folder … Nothing.

However you should use Child Themes. https://codex.www.ads-software.com/Child_Themes

What file did you edit?

thanks Mika. my theme is called wordpress default. (WordPress Default 1.6 by Michael Heilemann)

i made changes to a template called “single php file. i don’t know if that is a file in my theme default folder … is it?

i don’t understand what people mean when they suggest using “child themes” when talking about repairs and stuff. are you suggesting i use a new and different theme?

so given what you said, and what i responded, are you saying it should fine for me to copy and paste the modification which worked on my old version into the same place after i upgrade?

maybe i didn’t say this clearly before, but a nice moderator instead of telling me a change to make, sent me a copy of the entire single php file with her changes in it and had me use it to entirely replace the existing one.

i am sorry, i mean it when i say i am green …

i don’t know if that is a file in my theme default folder … is it?

Yes.

are you suggesting i use a new and different theme?

No – we’re suggesting that you use a child theme.

are you saying it should fine for me to copy and paste the modification which worked on my old version into the same place after i upgrade?

Yes but this will have to be re-done again if you update the theme in the future. A child theme will make this repeated modification unnecessary.

thank you very much Esmi.

for clarification, are you saying if i do this, it will NOT undermine any of the upgrade?

fyi, i did a bunch of reading and looking last night, and i understand child themes now. yes i should do that, and attempted, but got stuck at a very basic part because i’ve never dealt in my actual file manager before. –sharyn

Creating a child theme will NOT undermine any upgrade, if that’s what you mean.

no, i don’t mean that.

i’m going to do the upgrade to 3.4.2 (without making a child theme first) and i realize a modification i made previously to a single php file will likely be lost.

the way i made that modification before was not just to add some bits of code to the existing template, but i deleted that template and pasted in an entire new template. (this actually was from you, as you’d told me you don’t usually give help that way, but it seemed simpler for you in this case and you sent it to me thru paste bin)

the only change you made in it was so my sidebar would then appear on every page and post on my site, instead of just the home page)

so after i upgrade, i’d like to use that same entire template you sent me before, and use it in place of the single php file that i get from the upgrade.

my question is, if i do THAT, will i undermine any parts of the upgrade …

Provided you ONLY changed a file in the theme/default/ folder … Nothing.

so after i upgrade, i’d like to use that same entire template you sent me before, and use it in place of the single php file that i get from the upgrade.

You really shouldn’t do that. If you create a child theme as suggested above then you’ll be able to use that new single.php file but just put it into your child theme directory. That has the exact same effect as replacing the existing single.php file except you won’t lose anything next time you update.

It’s easy, it works, and more importantly, you won’t have to worry about upgrades anymore.

thank you Esmi. thank you Jan.

Jan, i understand and agree. i’m just not smart enough yet to use my file manager to create a child theme. ??

WHOOOO HOOOOO. thank you both again. i just upgraded and it all looks well. (did it thru blue host simple scripts, btw) somehow it decided to keep the most important code change i had made previously, so all my advertisements show on every page! plus it kept a couple other small tweaks i had made.

wordpress rocks!