Hi there!
The first thing you need to do is create a child theme so your changes are not lost when your theme updates.
Then you should copy the templates/footer.php file into your child theme folder.
You can now edit the file and place your content right at the top of the file. i.e.
<h1>THIS IS SOME TEXT TO APPEAR ON EVERY PAGE</h1>
<footer id="containerfooter" class="footerclass" role="contentinfo">
…
I hope that helps!
Luke the Daft Duke
Hi Daftduke, thank you. I pasted it into my custom CSS but it didn’t work, have I not don’t it right please?
Thank you again for tying to help me I really appreciate it
Hi Angela,
You dont’ need to paste anything in your custom CSS, not yet anyway.
It’s a bit of a long process I’m afraid but not too complex 🙂 You’ll need to use an FTP program (such as FileZilla or Cyberduck) or Cpanel’s Filemanager.
Please follow these steps:
1. Set up a child theme – see details at the codex or watch a tutorial here.
2. Copy the templates/footer.php file from your theme folder into your child theme folder.
3. Add your content to the top of your templates/footer.php file.
If you get stuck feel free to ask questions and I’ll do my best to help you out.
Cheers,
Luke the Daft Duke
Hi Luke, thank you I will give that a try. I thought pasting into the custom CSS did the same thing, only much easier. Is this not the case then?
Thank you again 🙂
Your welcome.
The custom CSS area is only for CSS styling (colors, layout, fonts etc.)
As you want to include actual content (words, pictures etc.) you’ll need to edit the php files.
If you do this without creating a child theme you’ll be at risk of losing your changes when the theme updates, hence the need to do that first.
Hope that makes sense 🙂 Good luck!
Cheers,
Luke the Daft Duke
Thank you Luke, I’m following your video now, taking me a while as I’m clueless, so following every step of your tutorial, you’re a diamond …
Luke, I followed your instruction but not sure where I have gone wrong. When I went back to wordpress and to Themes as instructed at the end of the tutorial, I see this message:
Broken Themes
The following themes are installed but incomplete. Themes must have a stylesheet and a template.
Name Description
Arcade Basic Child The parent theme is missing. Please install the “arcadebasic” parent theme.
I worked on my folder inside my FTP file at my host, completely forgot about filezilla (which is also new to me).. Is that the problem?
yet I can see the adult theme on my website and in dashboard it says:
WordPress 4.2.2 running Arcade Basic theme.
I’m so confused..!?
Hi Angela,
Sounds like a problem with your child theme’s style.css file .
It should look similar to this:
/*
Theme Name: Arcade Basic Child
Description: Arcade Basic Child Theme
Template: arcade-basic
Text Domain: arcade-basic-child
*/
/* Theme customization starts here
-------------------------------------------------------------- */
Think you’re right, I just tried to open it to see and its saying
invalid backend configuration ….
I remember this is what I did:
/*
Theme Name: Arcade Basic Child Child
Theme URI: http://mcquaintgifts.co.uk/arcade-basic-child/
Description: Arcade Basic Child Theme
Author: Angela McQuade
Author URI: http://mcquaintgifts.co.uk
Template: arcadebasic
Version: 1.0.0
License: GNU General Public License v2 or later
License URI: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html
Tags: light, dark, two-columns, right-sidebar, responsive-layout, accessibility-ready
Text Domain: arcade-basic-child
*/
Where have I gone wrong please Luke?
Oh and was it ok for me to work on it in the file at my hosting site? I couldn’t figure out how to do it with filezilla..
Can I ask please, to use fileZilla to do my child theme. Do I just create a folder on my desktop and paste code into notebook and save in that folder then move this into the wp-contents/themes folder using fileZilla?
I got confused thinking I was to create a file in there and couldn’t see anything to make files and folders.
And should I go back to my host site where I created the folder in the FTP (is this whats known you as CPanal) and delete the other folder I made there please?
Does this look better, I used your template instead of the one on the codex which removes the licence information (could that have been the problem)
/*
Theme Name: Arcade Basic Child
Theme URI: http://http://mcquaintgifts.co.uk/wordpress-child-theme
Description: Arcade Basic Child Theme
Author: Angela McQuade
Author URI: http://www.mcquaintgifts.co.uk
Template: arcadebasic
Version: 1.0.0
Tags: light, dark, two-columns, right-sidebar, responsive-layout, accessibility-ready
Text Domain: arcade-basic-child
*/
In the functions.php file, your code has an extra line to the wp codex one, which should I be using please? yours has this added at the top:
<?php
So sorry for all the question, and thank you so much for your help.
Hi Angela,
That looks better but I think you have one mistake:
Template: arcade-basic
(all lowercase with a hyphen)
If it’s not like that WordPress won’t understand what theme your referencing.
It’s okay for you to create the files at your host or with an FTP program – it doesn’t matter which piece of software you use.
FileZilla – you can create the folder on your desktop and upload it or you can create the folder within FileZilla:
After you have logged in to your remote site right click and select ‘Create Directory’.
If you do it on your desktop be careful to choose the correct file extension when you ‘save as’ – style.css and functions.php – if they save as .txt files it won’t work.
Once you have the child theme working you’ll need to copy the footer.php file from your parent theme folder into your child theme folder.
Let us know how it goes. 🙂
Cheers,
Luke
….I missed one question. The functions.php file :
You need the opening php tag like in my example. It does say this on the codex page:
The first line of your child theme’s functions.php will be an opening PHP tag (<?php), after which you can enqueue your parent and child theme stylesheets.
