Child Themes 101 Presentation by Jess Jacob

Child Themes 101 Who am I? – Jess Jacob – Freelance front end web developer – Callcenter dialer programmer – Writer and organizer of groups for local writers – And finally… 5/31/2014WordCamp Asheville 20142

Child Themes 101 The wrangler of two extremely fluffy, gray cats 5/31/2014WordCamp Asheville QuinlanSaoirse

Child Themes 101 What is a child theme? – A customization of an existing theme Think of it like a car – Getting a new paint job – Structure the same – Just changes to what’s already there 5/31/2014WordCamp Asheville 20144

Child Themes 101 What is a child theme NOT? – Not a custom theme – Not always the best solution But in many cases, I think yes! 5/31/2014WordCamp Asheville 20145

Child Themes 101 Why use a child theme? – Wordpress themes are great – Not always what we want out of the box Child themes allow you to – Quickly change Link color, font size, content dimensions, etc – Leave original theme untouched 5/31/2014WordCamp Asheville 20146

Child Themes 101 Child themes make development – Faster Less clicking between screens and pages Custom themes take a lot of time – Modular Less hunting to find the changes you made Everything is in one place 5/31/2014WordCamp Asheville 20147

Child Themes 101 Child themes make development – Changes stick Updating the theme won’t delete your changes Stay current and maintain your work! – Cost effective Speeds up the development process Saves you time (and your client money) Go live faster 5/31/2014WordCamp Asheville 20148

Child Themes 101 What if I'm only doing this for myself and not clients? Should I still bother with child themes? YES 5/31/2014WordCamp Asheville 20149

Child Themes 101 What You’ll Need 5/31/2014WordCamp Asheville

Child Themes 101 FTP Client (free) – FileZilla Windows and Mac – Yummy FTP Mac only Download from App Store 5/31/2014WordCamp Asheville

Child Themes 101 Text Editor (free) – Notepad++ Windows – TextWrangler Mac Download from App Store 5/31/2014WordCamp Asheville

Child Themes 101 Where do you start? 5/31/2014WordCamp Asheville

Child Themes 101 Find a theme to modify – e.g. Twenty Thirteen Determine customizations you want to make Create your stylesheet – style.css Upload to your server – /wp-content/themes/ Activate under Appearance in Dashboard That’s it! 5/31/2014WordCamp Asheville

Not limited to just CSS changes – Page templates – functions.php Customize existing functions Create your own Add additional widget areas – Must then call in a custom page template 5/31/2014WordCamp Asheville Child Themes 101

Some Examples 5/31/2014WordCamp Asheville

Home: Before the Child Theme 5/31/2014WordCamp Asheville

5/31/2014WordCamp Asheville Home: After the Child Theme

5/31/2014WordCamp Asheville Blog: Before the Child Theme

5/31/2014WordCamp Asheville Blog: After the Child Theme

How to determine what changes to make? – Your new best friend: Inspect Element Available in Chrome, Safari, and Firefox Right click an element then click “Inspect Element” Preview changes When happy, just add to your style.css and upload Can do HTML changes but best for just CSS 5/31/2014WordCamp Asheville Child Themes 101

Helpful links to get started – – Download this presentation wordcamp2014/ChildThemes101.pptx 5/31/2014WordCamp Asheville

Questions? 5/31/2014WordCamp Asheville

Contact Me Jess