Support » Plugin: Duplicate Theme » What is copied versus what is NOT copied?

  • Hello. I was interested to know precisely what this plugin will copy versus what it will not copy, while using it to create a CHILD theme from a PARENT theme that presently has no child defined.

    Specifically, after using your plugin as noted in my above question, will updates to the PARENT theme continue to influence the CHILD .. or is your plugin making a complete copy of the Parent theme?

    I am referencing this article, which describes well how certain files in the CHILD directory will have permanence over the Parent – hence, my concern:
    https://wordpress.org/support/topic/child-themes-and-php-pages

    Thanks in advance!

    https://wordpress.org/plugins/duplicate-theme/

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  • Thread Starter IRD-dev

    (@ird-dev)

    I believe that I have now answered my own question, by performing an inspection of the Theme parent and child directories .. which I first offloaded to my local machine and then leveraged “WinMerge” to perform the full compare (directories, files, contents).

    While your plugin does successfully create a “child theme”, it seems to DUPLICATE *every* directory and file from the parent, instead of merely creating a new STYLE.CSS in the child’s root directory with one simple reference to utilize the parent theme’s STYLE.CSS. For example:

    @import url("../parenttheme/style.css");

    Perhaps also create an empty functions.php in the aforementioned directory as well, as such:

    # Empty functions.php file for your childtheme
    # The parents functions.php contents will be loaded.
    # Add any additional or overwriting functions here.

    My point / concern is, especially for those who may be unfamiliar, that the intrinsic behaviour of WordPress is to utilize files that exist in the CHILD directory. Hence, when a Theme core/parent is updated, one’s WordPress site will continue to only load the now-antiquated files in the Child — files that were copied at an earlier timeframe using this plugin.

    In summary, once a Child theme is created using this plugin, all future updates to the theme’s parent will be ignored. Proof is in the aforementioned article: https://wordpress.org/support/topic/child-themes-and-php-pages

    If I am mistaken, please clarify. I just spent the last 30 minutes deleting a s#it-ton of directories and files which this plugin excessively created!

    Thread Starter IRD-dev

    (@ird-dev)

    No response in 5 months?

    This is truly a DANGEROUS plugin. Highly recommend others do NOT use it.

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)
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