Problem with 3 columns on post/static pages

Now that was a great answer easy as pie with it laid out like this I really appreciate it Tim.

Say for example I ever have to upgrade wordpress will that mess up the whispy theme from all the CSS and other changes that have been made? If so what should I do so I can replace everything after upgrading. I just don’t want to loose anything and if I run into a problem in the future I want to be able to replace anything that was lost, overwritten or whatever may happen.

I have a friend that had a custom theme made and when he upgraded to the new version of wordpress it ruined everything so I don’t want to be stuck in that same position if you know what I mean!

Upgrading WordPress is something you want to do. Otherwise you risk your data and website to hackers.

What you may not want to do is update the theme if you’ve made changes to the theme’s files. Then you’ll lose your changes.

If you’ve made some CSS changes, get them out of the theme’s files and put them in a Custom CSS Manager plugin.

If it’s more than CSS you’ve changed, create a Child Theme to hold those modifications instead.

Then you’ll be able to update the theme without losing your changes.

I agree with Andrew, updating WordPress you should always do. There’s a difference between updating WordPress and updating the Whispy team. When you update WordPress, the Whispy theme is not changed and your modifications remain. When updating the Whispy theme all your modifications are overwritten (gone). Updating the Whispy team is not necessary to do, unless the WordPress update requires theme changes (due to adding/removing/modifying functions that the theme uses). This generally doesn’t happen often and when it does, it will be explained in the WordPress changelog. So don’t worry, keep on updating WordPress, but not the Whispy team.

It is also possible to create a child theme and/or use plugins, but I don’t think it is really necessary in this case.

There’s a difference between updating WordPress and updating the Whispy team. When you update WordPress, the Whispy theme is not changed and your modifications remain. When updating the Whispy theme all your modifications are overwritten (gone).

So don’t worry, keep on updating WordPress, but not the Whispy team.

No. That’s really poor advice and I know you mean well. ??

I tell you three times: You always always always want to update your themes and plugins as well for the exact same reasons you want to keep WordPress up-to-date.

The theme/plugin author knows more about the software they’ve written than you or I do and when they release an update it’s usually because a bug or occasionally an exploit has been found and remediated.

We ask people to make child themes because the majority of the customizations are CSS based. If you need to make changes to the theme’s PHP then you can normally do so by editing a copy of the theme’s template file into the child theme directory and making your changes there.

That should absolutely work for header.php and style.css file modifications as above. If you do use a child theme then you’ll have a more supportable installation as well as a means to easily identify what/where you made changes if something stops working.

Say for example I ever have to upgrade wordpress will that mess up the whispy theme from all the CSS and other changes that have been made?

Updating WordPress itself (something you always want to do, as soon as an update is available) will have no impact whatsoever on installed Themes or Plugins. When WordPress core updates, the update doesn’t touch the wp-content directory where Themes, Plugins, and uploaded user content are stored.

If so what should I do so I can replace everything after upgrading. I just don’t want to loose anything and if I run into a problem in the future I want to be able to replace anything that was lost, overwritten or whatever may happen.

That’s only a potential concern if you are updating the Theme itself.

The way to avoid that problem is to ensure that you don’t modify the Theme itself, but instead use a Child Theme (or, if the changes are CSS-only, you can use a custom CSS Plugin, such as the custom CSS module of the JetPack Plugin).

I have a friend that had a custom theme made and when he upgraded to the new version of wordpress it ruined everything so I don’t want to be stuck in that same position if you know what I mean!

Very likely, the issue there was that the Theme itself wasn’t well-coded. (All of us who have ever developed a custom Theme have been there before.) But you’re using a Theme from the Theme directory; all Themes in the Theme directory should be safe to use with updated versions of WordPress.

I strongly encourage you to update your Themes and Plugins whenever updates are available. The developers release updates to add new features, to support changes to WordPress core, and to fix bugs and potential security vulnerabilities – though any Theme added to the Theme directory in the past couple of years should be relatively free of security vulnerabilities, thanks to the review each Theme must undergo before being approved.

No. That’s really poor advice and I know you mean well. ??

Thanks for your feedback, you are right. I’ll start using child themes from now on ;).

Thank you Tim and everybody who tried to help I appreciate it. Tim do you have any email address in case I have further questions or should I just leave this forum post open instead of marking it as closed for future use, or should I close it and open a new one in the future as needed?

[ Moderator note: Please refrain from asking people for their email address. Support is offered via the forum and not via email. ]

Thanks again Tim!

You are welcome Sabrina! I suggest to mark this topic as closed and open a new one when needed, but I’m not a moderator of this forum, so may be I’m wrong.