Mistake not creating a child theme

  • Resolved wpbnewbie

    (@wpbnewbie)


    12 years, 1 month ago

    So i have a site still on WP 3.2. I have been afraid of upgrading it because i foolishly did not create a child theme when i put it together last year. I am afraid i will break it if i upgrade. I know i changed the content of several files when i put it together but can no longer remember which ones i messed with. How do i now go about creating a child theme without screwing something up? Do i just grab all files in my current theme and copy them into my new child theme and them download a fresh copy of WP3.2 to use as my untouched theme? After that, i should then be able to move up to WP3.5 right? Please advise.

Viewing 15 replies - 1 through 15 (of 35 total)

  • What theme are you using?

    I think that your mistaking the theme and WordPress installation. If you simply upgrade to WP 3.5 that will not touch your theme files. Your theme files are only altered once you upgrade the theme.

    If I were you, I would upgrade to the latest version of WP, but make a back up of your theme just in case. If there are any issues, then you can re-upload the theme, but there shouldn’t be any.

    It’s good to have a theme backup anyway.

    Thread Starter wpbnewbie

    (@wpbnewbie)

    I am using the standard twenty eleven theme. Christine are you saying that upgrading to WP3.5 will not also bring along Twenty eleven 1.5?

    Thread Starter wpbnewbie

    (@wpbnewbie)

    I am using the standard twenty eleven theme. Christine are you saying that upgrading to WP3.5 will not also bring along Twenty eleven 1.5?

    If you upgrade to WP 3.5, Twenty Twelve does come bundled with it, but it doesn’t replace your current theme Twenty Eleven will still be there.

    Thread Starter wpbnewbie

    (@wpbnewbie)

    But i have twenty eleven 1.3. WP3.5 will probably bring twenty eleven 1.5 with it. This will mess my site up as it will have default untouched files as opposed to my altered 1.3 files. Is that not right?

    backup your site and try it. If it all goes horribly wrong just restore your backup. If you have cpanel or some other control panel your web host provides just back everything up and restore it if you need to

    Thread Starter wpbnewbie

    (@wpbnewbie)

    I know i can back it up but i would still like to know if my thinking is correct as far as WP3.5 bring TE1.5 with it.

    waheed

    (@waheed_imran)

    hi
    i need help on side baar i have more then 140 catagories on side bar
    i want to show just 10 catogries and then “view more” link then user click on view more catogires get opens
    thanks in advance

    waheed – please start your own thread — it’s rude to interrupt another person’s thread and your question is completely unrelated.

    You can do that here:

    https://www.ads-software.com/support/forum/how-to-and-troubleshooting#postform

    Having already done a little of this on a smaller scale, I would download a clean copy of your theme and use something like Notepad++ to compare your pages with fresh ones in order to define and assemble a proper Child Theme. Then after de-activating all plugins and getting your new Child Theme running (to check it to be sure all is well there), I would next revert back to the Parent Theme to do the WordPress update…then re-activate your new Child Theme and plugins.

    Thread Starter wpbnewbie

    (@wpbnewbie)

    So i went ahead and created a child theme. When i activated it, i immediately got a fatal error message. After further googling, i discovered that i cannot have the same function.php file in the parent and child. I removed the one from the child just to recover my website. Now i am confused about this function.php file. I for sure need one in my child theme but from what i have read, i have to manually create one from scratch? Can anyone give simplified instructions on how to proceed from here? Thanks.

    Review:

    https://codex.www.ads-software.com/Child_Themes

    You don’t necessarily need one in your child theme. The only files in a child theme are those that are different from the parent theme.

    Thread Starter wpbnewbie

    (@wpbnewbie)

    Unfortunately in my case, i require a function.php in the child theme as it appears to be one of the ones i modified the most when i initially set up the site. I read that link before posting and it was still a little confusing to a newbie like me.

    Then you will likely need to compare the contents of an unmodified version of the file to yours. Some text editors can help with that.

    Make sure that you are making frequent back-ups and copies of files as you are doing this kind of thing :).

Viewing 15 replies - 1 through 15 (of 35 total)
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