Upgrading Themes

Theme settings will be preserved when you update your Theme, because Theme settings are stored in the database, which is not impacted by Theme update.

The warning about “Any customizations you have made to theme files will be lost. Please consider using child themes for modifications” is only applicable if you have made any changes to the PHP or CSS files within the Theme.

Would the same apply moving from Atahualpa version 3.2?

Currently trying to get W3C validation and find a lot of errors are from within the older version possibly – other errors will still have to hunt down and resolve.

I upgraded Atahualpa theme back around March 19 to version 3.6.4 . Now the logo image (vhlogo.gif) that used to show on the extreme left in the header area of my blog (www.vibranthealthworld.com) no longer displays. Instead there is the “placeholder” with the red x in it.

From within my admin panel I notice that to turn off scrolling/rotating images in the header I am to have only one image file at /wp-content/themes/atahualpa/images/header/ . This is where my logo image (vhlogo.gif) used to be. Since upgrade that file is gone and there are 3 other images in the folder – header6.jpg modified 3/19/11, IMG_1479.jpg modified 3/19/11, and IMG_1496.jpg modified 3/19/11 .

In my attempt to fix I uploaded logo image (vhlogo.gif) to the folder /wp-content/themes/atahualpa/images/header/ but did not remove the other 3 images header6, IMG_1479, and IMG_1496 because these may be the theme images for posts and comments that display in the header area. My attempt didn’t change anything and my logo still doesn’t display in the header area.

Help?

Any files you upload should be uploaded to /wp-content/uploads.

When a Theme is updated, then entire Theme is deleted, and replaced with the new version. So anything you add to the Theme’s directory will likewise be deleted.

In the WP dashbooard we have been notified we can update the Twenty Eleven Theme from ver 1.3 to 3.3. However the warning given is “Any customizations you have made to theme files will be lost. Please consider using child themes for modifications.” We are fairly new to WP and this looks like if we just hit the upgrade button we may loose our website. I am probably reading more into the note given but just need a little help or reassurance that it is OK to upgrade without having to go back to our web developer to re-do our site. Any guidance with this would be most appreciated as i could not find anything really givin instruction about the note or warning given.

Did you modify the CSS or PHP files in the twenty eleven theme? If not, you have nothing to worry about. If you did make modification directly to the theme files, then those modifications will be lost on upgrade.

Never make changes directly to the default wordpress theme – in this case twenty eleven. Always create a child theme and leave the default unmodified. Many times when troubleshooting you will be asked to set your site back to the default theme to determine if the issue is related to the theme you are using and if you have modified the theme then you have no “default” theme to return to.

Sacredpath,

Thank you so very much for your quick reply it helps tremendously so we don’t step into a mess.

Paul Brayton