What is a Parent Theme? A parent theme in WordPress is a theme that is declared parent by another theme, child theme. This feature in Word...
What is a Parent Theme?
A parent theme in WordPress is a theme that is declared parent by another theme, child theme. This feature in WordPress allows theme designers and developers to take advantage of a larger and robust WordPress theme and make modifications to those themes by creating child themes.
What is a Child Theme?
A child theme is an add-on for your existing WordPress theme, child theme, as defined by the WordPress Codex, is a theme that “inherits the functionality and styling of another theme, called the parent theme.” Child themes are recommended to modify existing themes while still maintaining their design and code.
If you are doing extensive customization – beyond genres and some theme files – creating a basic theme may be a better option than a child theme. Creating a core theme will allow you to avoid issues with demoted code in the future. This should be decided on a case-by-case basis.
1. Create a child theme folder
First, create a new folder in your themes directory, located at wp-content/themes.
The directory needs a name. It’s best practice to give a child theme the same name as the parent, but with -child appended to the end. For example, if you were making a child theme of twentytwenty, then the directory would be named twentytwenty-child.
2. Create a stylesheet file: style.css
Next, you will need to create a stylesheet file named style.css, which will contain all of the CSS rules and declarations that control the look of your theme. Your stylesheet must contain the below required header comment at the very top of the file. This tells WordPress basic info about the theme, including the fact that it is a child theme with a particular parent.
************************
/*Theme Name: Twenty Twenty Child
Theme URI: https://example.com/twenty-twenty-child/
Description: Twenty Twenty Child Theme
Author: John Doe
Author URI: https://example.com
Template: twentytwenty
Version: 1.0.0
License: GNU General Public License v2 or later
License URI: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html
Tags: light, dark, two-columns, right-sidebar, responsive-layout, accessibility-ready
Text Domain: twentytwentychild
*/
The following information is must required:
- Theme Name – needs to be unique to your theme
- Template – the name of the parent theme directory. The parent theme in our example is the Twenty Twenty theme, so the Template will be twentytwenty. You may be working with a different theme, so adjust accordingly.
Add remaining information as applicable. The only required child theme file is style.css, but functions.php is necessary to enqueue styles correctly (below).
3. Enqueue stylesheet: The final step is to enqueue the parent and child theme stylesheets if needed.
If the parent theme loads both stylesheets, the child theme does not need to do anything.
If the parent theme loads its style using a function starting with get_template, such as get_template_directory() and get_template_directory_uri(), the child theme needs to load just the child styles, using the parent’s handle in the dependency parameter.
add_action( 'wp_enqueue_scripts', 'my_theme_enqueue_styles' );
function my_theme_enqueue_styles() {
wp_enqueue_style( 'child-style', get_stylesheet_uri(),
array( 'parenthandle' ),
wp_get_theme()->get('Version') // this only works if you have Version in the style header
);
}
4. Install child theme:
Install the child theme as you install any other theme. You can copy the folder to the site using FTP, or create a zip file of the child theme folder, choosing the option to maintain folder structure, and click on Appearance > Themes > Add New to upload the zip file.
5. Activate child theme:
Your child theme is now ready for activation. Log in to your site’s Administration Screen, and go to Administration Screen > Appearance > Themes. You should see your child theme listed and ready for activation.
THANKS FOR READING 🙂
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