Child WordPress themes are a simple way for you to make modifications to any existing WordPress theme.
The main advantage of child themes is that it allows you to update the parent theme as often as you want, and still keep all of your theme modifications intact. With child themes, you make all your modifications in a separate area than the parent theme area. These modifications then get automatically transferred to new versions of the parent theme with little or no effort from you. In this way, you can keep up to date with new WordPress features and releases, without losing any of your previous work.
Here is an example child theme for Shiba. You can install it as you would any WordPress theme, and it automatically inherits all of the properties of its parent theme. You can use it as a starting point for learning about child themes.
The Shiba child theme only contains –
- A style.css file where you can add new static styles, and override old styles from the parent theme.
- A functions.php file where you can create new dynamic styles and override previous styles.
- Two different page template files that can be used together with the Shiba WordPress theme.
If you do or plan to do any WordPress theme modifications, child themes are well worth the time to learn. It will save you a lot of effort down the road, and provide you with much greater website design flexibility.
Here are some simple tutorials on how-to –
These techniques will give you great power in customizing and personalizing your blog.