Child themes in WordPress: What are they and how to create them?
Posted: Tue Dec 17, 2024 7:25 am
Over the years, WordPress has evolved from a simple blogging system into an easy-to-use CMS platform and has become ubiquitous on the web. Thanks to its popularity, many professionals have specialized in providing WordPress themes as website templates. These already include almost all the functionalities of a website and are very similar to what the final product should look like, but not identical. Usually, code adjustments have to be made to adapt the site to the corporate design, or the structure has to be changed. But what happens to the changes when the theme is updated? This is what child themes in WordPress are for.
What is a WordPress Child Theme?
If you want to prevent your changes from being overwritten when updating, you denmark phone number data should use a WordPress child theme. WordPress child themes are, as the name suggests, the children of a parent theme . They are tied to the parent theme in such a way that they inherit its appearance and functions. If you make individual adjustments in the WordPress child theme, these are automatically overwritten in the instructions of the parent theme. Therefore, the changes have no effect on the parent theme. If the parent theme is updated, the changes in the WordPress child theme remain in place.
Advice
During major adjustments or updates, error messages may appear on the website. In order not to disturb users, you should activate WordPress maintenance mode .
What is a WordPress child theme made of?
A WordPress child theme can have different components. In this sense, the changes and the files where these are made are decisive. However, for WordPress child themes to work correctly , there are certain files that you must create for each of them:
CSS stylesheet file style.css
function.php
screenshot.png (optional)
Why does WordPress child theme need these three files?
Child themes in WordPress: how they work
As we have already mentioned, a WordPress child theme needs three files to function. The files have the following functions:
What is a WordPress Child Theme?
If you want to prevent your changes from being overwritten when updating, you denmark phone number data should use a WordPress child theme. WordPress child themes are, as the name suggests, the children of a parent theme . They are tied to the parent theme in such a way that they inherit its appearance and functions. If you make individual adjustments in the WordPress child theme, these are automatically overwritten in the instructions of the parent theme. Therefore, the changes have no effect on the parent theme. If the parent theme is updated, the changes in the WordPress child theme remain in place.
Advice
During major adjustments or updates, error messages may appear on the website. In order not to disturb users, you should activate WordPress maintenance mode .
What is a WordPress child theme made of?
A WordPress child theme can have different components. In this sense, the changes and the files where these are made are decisive. However, for WordPress child themes to work correctly , there are certain files that you must create for each of them:
CSS stylesheet file style.css
function.php
screenshot.png (optional)
Why does WordPress child theme need these three files?
Child themes in WordPress: how they work
As we have already mentioned, a WordPress child theme needs three files to function. The files have the following functions: