Andrew Nevins
(@anevins)
WCLDN 2018 Contributor | Volunteer support
1) Should I be working on my child theme when designing my website? Or continue working on my original theme?
You should be working in your Child Theme if you’re modifying the theme. Otherwise you’ll lose your changes when the theme updates.
2) Do I need to copy any php files from my original theme to my child theme? If so, which ones?
Only the files you wish to modify. E.g, if you want to change header.php, you copy that into your Child Theme and then modify that.
I’m having trouble knowing which files I should be copying over. When I tried to copy over the functions.php file…. the entire page would no longer load. I’m really just looking to get my menu/header/footer into my child theme. My logo is no longer showing correctly, the words are typed there in the top l left, but no longer my logo.
Andrew Nevins
(@anevins)
WCLDN 2018 Contributor | Volunteer support
Yeah, sorry don’t copy functions.php or style.css over into your Child Theme.
See http://codex.wordpress.org/Child_Themes#Using_functions.php
Changes you’ve made in theme setting or options are not carried over to a child theme so you’ll need to redo any of those.
A functions file cannot be copied to a child theme- it WILL definitely break the theme! That file works differently – if you need to make changes to the functions file, see the instructions for child themes.
It’s also possible that your theme won’t work with a child theme – some won’t because of the way they are coded or files structured. But see if the above solves/explains the current issues.
EDIT- sorry, cross posted with AN (hi Andrew š )!
Do I really need to start all over and redesign my site to have the menus I have created in my original theme? And also re-import my logo for my header and footer?
Is there a way I can move files from my original edited theme to my child them so that when I view my site it works corruptly?
I’m having trouble knowing which files i should copy over…
When I copy over the functions.php file to my child theme my page no longer displays?
You do have to redo settings and options – it’s like changing to any other new theme. What files have you modified?
A functions file cannot be copied to a child theme- it WILL definitely break the theme! That file works differently – if you need to make changes to the functions file, see the instructions for child themes.
Before you put more time into this, you may want to check with the theme developers about whether this theme is child friendly – we cannot tell you that for sure one way or another as we don’t have access to and thus don’t support commercial themes here.
To be honest I haven’t made any major changes thus far.
The main concern I have is my main site menu to navigate to the different pages on my site, it’s not in my child theme. I don’t really need to import my entire design portfolio again do I? To make sure I’m clear… I can’t just move over my header.php file and footer.php file from my edited original theme correct? I definitely need to re-upload my logos and re-make my navigation menus?
Here you can view my original edited theme to see what I am referring to:
http://www.icreativedesign.net
Unless you have made changes to the code in the header.php and/or footer.php files, there is no reason to move them – it won’t change anything. Yes, you will need to redo any changes you’ve made via the dashboard – such as menus, logos, etc. (Sorry I don’t have an easier way to tell you to do it š ).
You have been so helpful and I appreciate it VERY much! I have updated all of my dashboard changes and so far everything is working minus the background I originally had… it’s showing up as blank white. (which seems strange as I had never changed the theme background from what it originally came with and my child theme is set to the same settings). I’m hoping this will work itself out!
Anyways.. one last question. Maybe I will have to put this in a new topic, and maybe there isn’t anyone who can help me with this, but I’ll press my luck and go ahead and ask anyways..
As you can see my ‘portfolio’ has 2 drop-down pages ‘print’ and ‘logo’, which do not work. Unfortunately the theme I purchased only came with one portfolio page. However, I can have as many filter categories as I would like within the portfolio page. (right now I have made two- ‘print’ and ‘logo’. What I am trying to do is set up the drop down pages to direct users to the correct filtered category within my portfolio. Any help on this would be greatly appreciated!
You’re welcome. I’m not totally sure what’s up with the other question and you may need to ask the theme developer – but generally you can add category pages (really posts) in the menu screen –
http://codex.wordpress.org/Appearance_Menus_Screen#Categories
hm I think you might be on to something…
I really have the feeling what I am looking to do is simple and that is why I did not want to go to a web developer to do this. I was quoted for $700 to do this and I’m really hoping I am able to avoid that and figure it out myself.
I don’t know if you will be able to view the screenshots below, but if so that would be helpful. I am in the Menu ection of my page and I have added to the menu the categories print & logo. I placed them under the print & logo pages in my home menu. So far this hasn’t worked, but I’m REALLY hoping I’m not too far off…
/Users/amandacappai/Desktop/Screen Shot 2013-03-30 at 1.23.57
/Users/amandacappai/Desktop/Screen Shot 2013-03-30 at 1.24.05 PM.png
It’s not possible to post images here – if you put them on your site and link here, I can look at them :).
I think you need to get rid of the “pages” items – so the category items would be directly under the portfolio page:
Portfolio
Logo Categories
Print Categories
See if that works.
