Child theme CSS changes not showing up on site

  • Hello – I am fairly new to WordPress and since completely re-doing my site about 6 or 7 times – I have decided to start using a child theme – I have followed all of the instructions for creating a child theme and I have activated it. I am new to CSS but it seems like all of the things that I have been adding to my css file in the editor are not taking effect at all. To test the theory that I just don’t know what I am doing – I found css that someone who obviously knew what they were doing and pasted it in my file to see if it made any changes – it did not. I have created a folder in /themes called /themes/childtheme – as I mentioned I have activated it so I know that WP is recognizing it (it says in the themes screen that this is a child theme for the parent theme twentytwelve. On a side note – I have copied the header.php file to this directory and made changes to it and those changes are apparent on the page so it must just be something with this particular file. It is named style.css and it is located in the /childtheme folder. This is what is in the file right now:

    /*
    Theme Name: Childtheme
    Description: Child theme for the TwentyTwelve theme
    Theme URI: https://www.www.ads-software.com
    Author: Riley Betka
    Author URI: https://www.daily-mash.com/
    Template: twentytwelve
    version: .1
    */

    @import url(“../twentytwelve/style.css”);

    for right now I am really just trying to change the main content area background to black. I have added
    #page {
    background-color: black;
    }
    #content {
    background-color: black;
    }

    It seems like that should be changing the color but it does nothing – can anyone help me figure out what I am doing wrong? Seems like it is something small and stupid that is preventing my changes from taking effect. I am trying to start playing around with CSS and so far this is quite the let down – thanks in advance for your help!

Viewing 15 replies - 1 through 15 (of 21 total)

  • Can you post a link to your site? CSS is pretty impossible to diagnose without looking at the actual site live.

    The twenty twelve theme uses the .main class to customize the main content area, which includes the site content and the sidebar.

    If you mean the div where the posts are displayed, the class would be .primary, and the posts are article tags

    Try adding this to your style.css file and see if it helps.

    .primary {
    background-color: black;
    }

    Thread Starter rileybetka

    (@rileybetka)

    the url is https://www.daily-mash.com/wordpress2/

    Thread Starter rileybetka

    (@rileybetka)

    gugutz: I tried this and it did nothing – I don’t think it’s a problem with what I am putting in the css because NOTHING seems to make a change – even when I paste css that other people have written

    Thread Starter rileybetka

    (@rileybetka)

    I found something else that said to change something in my header file but I tried that and it didn’t seem to do anything either…something about changing a call header from ?php echo get_template_directory_uri to ?php echo get_stylesheet_directory_uri

    Where are you putting the code — I see nothing in the child theme CSS file.

    Do you have any caching on your site?

    Thread Starter rileybetka

    (@rileybetka)

    I don’t know if I have caching on my site or not – how do I determine that? I have been making changes to the file via the editor in wordpress and clicking update file. I have noticed that sometimes there is a strange lag when I make changes and save them – sometimes they don’t show up until the next day – sometimes they are instant – very peculiar

    That sounds like caching – look at your plugins – anything like SuperCache or something similar. It’s also possible that your host uses caching.

    Thread Starter rileybetka

    (@rileybetka)

    I know that I have not added any plugins to this wordpress install – I use ipage as my webhost – is there a way to find out in my cpanel and if so can I turn it off?

    You’d need to check with them. Does this happen even in the default theme (not child)? It looks like your child theme is set up right – are you then making changes in the child theme style.css file? Just as a test try adding this there:

    .entry-content p, .entry-summary p, .comment-content p, .mu_register p {
    color: red;
}

    Save it, clear your browser cache and see if it shows up on the page – “Home” page title should be red.

    Thread Starter rileybetka

    (@rileybetka)

    I just don’t feel like it should be so difficult to do something as simple as changing the background of my content area – can’t wait until I start trying to create templates for my category pages. Why is there so much crap in my header.php file? Seems like it should be pretty simple to display a header image in the center of the page and somehow the php file is like a page and a half long – doesn’t make it easy to make minor adjustments to things…

    Thread Starter rileybetka

    (@rileybetka)

    I pasted that in my childtheme style.css and clicked update file – I cleared my browser’s cache and reloaded the page – no change

    No it shouldn’t be and isn’t usually this problematic. The header.php file has lots of stuff that makes a website run – more than what is on your pages.

    So do changes you make to your chile theme — adding content or whatever, show up right away?

    Thread Starter rileybetka

    (@rileybetka)

    So now I went to my other computer and loaded the page and the word home is showing up in red…how the heck am I supposed to tweak and edit this thing if the changes don’t show up right away?

    That’s a caching issue. Check your browser settings and clear the cache, cookies, etc. If it’s a server cache – check with your hosts.

Viewing 15 replies - 1 through 15 (of 21 total)
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