Hagelslag

Thanks Michael! I’m going to look into at as soon as I have time again, which should be pretty soon.

Hi Tara,

Thanks. But I basically want to build a web site from scratch, and a pre-made theme (made by someone else) only interferes and hinders while implementing my own ideas. I do want to use WordPress, because of its great back-end functionality and many plug-ins, not because of its themes.

So ideally I would like my site either to be independent from any theme, or turn the site – as developed in the child theme – into a (stand-alone) theme itself. I haven’t really looked into the latter possibility as yet, but for now I’m mostly curious as to how difficult and/or time-consuming it would be.

Hi Marios,

Well, as it turned out, I was in for a bit of a surprise this morning, as the unwanted behaviour stopped when I once and for all removed all files from the parent theme. I had done this before – or so I thought! – but at that time the behaviour hadn’t stopped, and later on I had put copies of some files back to the parent theme’s map (all this didn’t seem relevant, so I didn’t post about it to keep the post from becoming even longer).

Bottom line seems to be that, exactly as you stated, the responsiveness WAS due to the parent theme.

Incidentally, I think we mean precisely the same thing when speaking of ‘responsiveness’.

The parent theme I used is called Naked WordPress (http://naked-wordpress.bckmn.com/). I chose it because I wanted to build my own site, not hindered by the presence of an intrusive theme. I use WordPress for its great back-end functionality, not for its themes, as I mostly know what the site I’m building should look like, and in my experience a parent theme hinders development (in the child theme) more than it helps. It’s more difficult to tweak an existing theme than to simply write all of the code yourself – once again, in my very personal experience. (Unless, of course, the theme gives you exactly want you want – but after trying dozens of free themes I still hadn’t found one that even came close. For blogs it may be a different story.)

In this case, despite its name, Naked WordPress still caused me a lot of trouble (in particular, it interfered with my own styling in the child theme), and so fairly soon I decided to empty or delete its files. As I said, and for reasons I don’t quite remember, I put some of those back, and the result is known. Now I’ve deleted them once and for all. (For the record, I have kept empty files style.css and one template file, since WordPress started complaining about their absence in the parent theme.)

Next time, I will not bother to download a parent theme at all. (When I started, I thought it was required; but if I understand correctly, I could simple create a new submap in the Themes map instead and work from there).

So my problem is solved. Although of course now I’ll have to research how to make my site responsive when I actually want it to be, i.e. on smaller screens, and in the right way too. But that’s a whole different subject.

Nonetheless, I’d like to ask one more general question if I may. Is it correct to think of a (parent) theme as no more than the set of viewable files in its designated map? Or is there more to a theme, like unaccessible files or settings hidden somewhere, that could still potentially interfere with my own code in the child theme?

Thanks again!
Hagelslag.

Hi Marios,

Thanks for your reply!

However, I’m still in the dark as to what causes this behaviour. I’ve deleted ALL files in the parent theme, including those in its submaps. (With the exception of two files of unclear types called .DS_Store and .gitignore, for which I have no idea what they do, but assume they may be crucial for the correct functioning of the Database or something like that, and which I do not dare remove.)

As for the child-theme, which I’ve built myself, it only consists of code I’ve written myself, and for which – as yet – I’ve not provided any responsiveness. In my code, I never distinguish based on window (or screen) size. The only code not written by myself is a few lines in function.php, namely:

<?php add_action( ‘wp_enqueue_scripts’, ‘theme_enqueue_styles’ );
function theme_enqueue_styles() {
wp_enqueue_style( ‘parent-style’, get_template_directory_uri() . ‘/style.css’ );
}
function new_excerpt_length($length) {
return 25;
}
add_filter(‘excerpt_length’, ‘new_excerpt_length’);

And this also seems completely innocent in terms of responsiveness.

I note that, actually, my main menu, which I have coded myself without the help of any plug-in, is one of the elements that displays unwanted responsiveness (it causes a bit of a mess really, as it breaks into several lines once the window becomes so small that the menu does not fit on one line anymore). Which suggests that plug-ins aren’t the culprits either.

I also note, for what it’s worth, that EVERY WordPress web site that I’ve tested for it, seems to display this behaviour. I’m really wondering if it’s not built-in into WordPress itself, irrespective of the theme used. (Of course, I may well be wrong in this suspicion, but at the moment I simply do not see another explanation.)

Thanks for reading.
Hagelslag.