How I used a WordPress Child Theme To Redesign My Blog

Posted on July 2, 2008 by Ian Stewart

Problem: You want to take advantage of WordPress Parent-Child Themes but you want more control than is usually afforded through CSS alone. What about adding a Favicon? Or a link to a custom stylesheet for IE fixes.? Or editing the menu? How do you do that without messing around with the original Parent Theme?

Solution: You do what I did. I had this exact same problem redesigning ThemeShaper to take advantage of my WordPress Theme Framework, Thematic. I’ll tell you how I solved it and give you a better idea of the power of the functions.php file in WordPress Child Themes.

When you’re done reading this post you should be well on your way to taking full advantage of the power of WordPress Child Themes and redesigning your blog the smart way—leaving the original parent theme files untouched.

And if you haven’t heard about WordPress Child Themes before, make sure you take a look at my post on How To Protect Your WordPress Theme Against Upgrades. I go through a quick primer on them and how to get started using them (along with some useful tips on using Plugins).

First, Make a Functions.php File

Currently, only two overriding files are recognized in WordPress Child Themes, style.css and functions.php (unless my proposal for 2.7 makes it in). You can do a lot with CSS alone but with functions.php your theme can interact with WordPress just like a plugin.

First things first: make a file in your Child Theme folder called functions.php and add the PHP opening and closing tags to the first and second line (<?php and ?>) using your favorite text editor (I use Smultron). Make sure you don’t have any extra lines before or after these tags. We’re going to be inserting the following snippets of code on the lines in-between these tags. Now you’re ready to make your WordPress Child Theme sing.

… not literally, of course. That would be annoying.

How To Add a Favicon To Your WordPress Child Theme

It seems that lately no blog is complete without it’s own favicon, that odd little doo-dad that shows up in the address bar of your browser. Making one is another story entirely but here’s how I added one to my Child Theme by adding in a <link> tag to wp_head in the Parent Theme.

function childtheme_favicon() { ?>
    <link rel="shortcut icon" href="<?php echo bloginfo('stylesheet_directory') ?>/images/favicon.ico">
<?php }

add_action('wp_head', 'childtheme_favicon');

Take a close look at that function and action in the example above. We made a new function, childtheme_favicon; added some code inside it—the sort of thing you’d see in any old WordPress theme—wrapped in braces and PHP tags ({ ?> and <?php }); and then used add_action to add it in to wp_head, found in the header.php of all good WordPress themes. You can do a lot with this technique. In fact, we’re going to use it in the next example.

How To Add a Custom Stylesheet To Your WordPress Child Theme

Here I’ve used IE Conditional Comments to load a separate stylesheet that will deal directly with some of IE’s, er, pleasant quirks. All you need is a stylesheet called ie.css in your Child Theme directory and, well, to be frank, a lot of patience for dealing with Internet Explorer.

function childtheme_iefix() { ?>
    <!--[if lt IE 8]>
	<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="<?php echo bloginfo('stylesheet_directory') ?>/ie.css" />
    <![endif]-->
<?php }

add_action('wp_head', 'childtheme_iefix');

If you follow the basic idea here you can do more than just cram your theme into Internet Explorer’s constricting mold. Throw in some WordPress conditional tags and you can start to do something really fancy; loading custom stylesheets for different sections of your site and making your theme look different on every page.

How To Customize Your WordPress Child Theme Menu

My last item here will only work with Thematic and The Sandbox (or any Parent Theme that filters it’s menu). Sorry, that’s just the way it is. Luckily, this technique is super-powerful and a real life-saver when it comes to creating a custom Child Theme that you can actually use on your site.

What we’re going to do is create a custom menu for our Child Theme that only shows the pages we want to see. Even better, I’ve got two ways for you to do it.

Custom Menu One: Modify The Page Output

Our first method involves limiting the pages output by wp_list_pages. It’s pretty simple (and will sound more complicated than it actually is). What I’ve done here is copy the original sandbox_globalnav function from sandbox-functions.php in the Thematic library directory and made it into a new function called childtheme_menu. Then I made one small change to the innards of it: I told WordPress to include only pages of a specific ID. Take a look at the code below.

function childtheme_menu() {
	$menu = '<div id="menu"><ul>';
	// Note the include below. It only shows pages with those IDs. Change the ID number to whatever you like.
	$menu .= str_replace( array( "\r", "\n", "\t" ), '', wp_list_pages('include=24,27,28&title_li=&sort_column=menu_order&echo=0') );
	$menu .= "</ul></div>\n";
    echo $menu;
} 

add_filter( 'wp_page_menu', 'childtheme_menu' );

Did you see the include=24,27,28 in the code? That’s all there is to it. You can read more about what you can do with wp_list_pages in the WordPress Codex.

Custom Menu Two: Make It Totally Custom

In the following example I’ve again filtered sandbox_globalnav but this time I’ve adapted some code from Building a Dynamic WordPress Menu to create a completely custom menu. This gives you total control over your blog’s menu and—besides being my preferred method of WordPress menu creation—is the method I used on this very blog.

function childtheme_menu() { ?>
<div id="menu">
<ul>
	<li class="<?php if ( is_page('about') ) { ?>current_page_item<?php } else { ?>page_item<?php } ?>"><a href="<?php echo get_option('home') ?>/about/" title="About This Blog">About</a></li>
	<li class="<?php if ( is_page('advertising') ) { ?>current_page_item<?php } else { ?>page_item<?php } ?>"><a href="<?php echo get_option('home') ?>/advertising/" title="Advertise on My Blog">Advertise</a></li>
	<li class="<?php if ( is_page('contact') ) { ?>current_page_item<?php } else { ?>page_item<?php } ?>"><a href="<?php echo get_option('home') ?>/contact/" title="Contact Me">Contact</a></li>
</ul>
</div>

<?php }

add_filter( 'wp_page_menu', 'childtheme_menu' );

More On WordPress Parent-Child Themes

I’ve not come across a lot of info on WordPress Parent-Child Themes so I’m guessing you haven’t either. To correct that, here’s some more information on WordPress Parent-Child Theming and what you can do with it (I’ll keep adding to the post as I find more info—feel free to alert me in the comment section). Have fun!

How To Modify WordPress Themes The Smart Way—My comprehensive post series on WordPress Child Themes.
The WordPress Codex—Specifically, the section that talks about defining a parent theme
Designing For The Sandbox—Scott Wallick, creator of The Sandbox, on what you can do with a Child Theme (he calls them Templates)
How To Protect Your WordPress Theme Against Upgrades—My post on WordPress Child Themes
Child Themes in WordPress 2.7—My Trac Proposal for WordPress 2.7 that outlines the current benefits of Child Themes and how they can be made even better
Creating WordPress Child Themes—from WangenWeb

124 thoughts on “How I used a WordPress Child Theme To Redesign My Blog”

Jeffro2pt0 on July 3, 2008 at 4:02 am said:

I’ve never heard of parent-child themes before. If I get this straight, could I use one theme for my main site and actually define other themes for various parts of the parent theme? Would this be a cool way to use more than one theme at a time on a wordpress powered site?
Ian Stewart on July 3, 2008 at 5:06 am said:

A Child Theme inherits all the template files of the Parent Theme—except for style.css and functions.php, which take precedence over the original. In my case here I’m using a Child Theme called Hanzo that modifies my theme Thematic. When I update Thematic in the future (or like I just did—using the trunk version) I don’t have to worry about any changes made to the Parent Theme overwriting my modifications. Check out the links at the end of the post for a better idea of what you can do with Parent-Child themes.
Justin Tadlock on July 3, 2008 at 4:04 pm said:

Man, I gotta catch up with you on this. I’ve started building my framework based on a couple of my themes’ functions, but it’s slow-going right now.

I’m really just waiting for your Trac ticket to make it into core. Then, I’ll be set.
Ian Stewart on July 3, 2008 at 4:06 pm said:

I really think that trac ticket is going to make life way easier for people like you and me (and a whole lot of other people). I wish I knew how to solve the new custom page templates problem though.
Alister Cameron // Blogologist on July 3, 2008 at 7:19 pm said:

Ian,

WP deprecated bloginfo(‘stylesheet_directory’) in 2.3.1

And as a consequence, we have no WP variable to tell the difference between the child theme and the “foundation” theme, as we once did.

How do you get around this, or are you asking WP to put stylesheet_directory back in??

Cheers,

-Alister

—
Alister Cameron // Blogologist
http://www.alistercameron.com

Mob. 04 0404 5555
Fax 03 8610 0050
Ian Stewart on July 3, 2008 at 7:32 pm said:

You know, I totally forgot about that. I wonder what’s happening with that.

Anyway, <?php bloginfo('wpurl'); ?>/wp-content/themes/your-child-theme-directory-name-here/whatever.something should work too.

Alister, you put your fax number in your blog comments? Isn’t the fax machine deprecated?
Lloyd Budd on July 3, 2008 at 10:03 pm said:

This is a brilliant article, but it seem like it may be missing the most important detail. How you identify the “parent theme”. Your article ends with ” Designing For The Sandbox—Scott Wallick, creator of The Sandbox, on what you can do with a Child Theme (he calls them Templates)”. It seems more correct to say that Template is what WordPress calls them. It is the Template parameter in the style.css that you use to identify the theme the current theme inherits from.
Ian Stewart on July 3, 2008 at 10:12 pm said:

Well…

The WordPress codex explains the Template parameter thusly, “Template: use-this-to-define-a-parent-theme–optional” and then goes on to say…

Hey, waitaminute it actually says Child Theme in the codex now…

Note that specifying a parent Theme will inherit all of the template files from that Theme — meaning that any template files in the child Theme’s directory will be ignored

When did that happen? I swear it didn’t say that before. I was all ready to argue my case, pointing out how Template would be a confusing term and how if you’re defining a Parent for your theme that makes your theme a Child.
Ian Stewart on July 3, 2008 at 10:15 pm said:

… and I’d pointed out how to define a parent theme earlier. Which is a bad blogging mistake, assuming continuity in readership. Thanks for pointing that out, Lloyd. I’ve amended the post.
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John on July 4, 2008 at 7:16 am said:

Hi Ian,

Great post! I really like your idea of “theme frameworks” btw, and have put in my vote on Trac.

Just a few coding things I noticed — as an FYI, this code is redundant:

echo bloginfo('stylesheet_directory')

The bloginfo function already echo’s the result (the get_bloginfo function returns it, however), so there’s no need to add an extra echo statement in there.

Also, I think this code would need to be outside the function declaration instead of inside it:

add_filter( 'sandbox_menu', 'childtheme_menu' );

@Alister: Thanks for pointing out the stylesheet_directory deprecation; I didn’t know that. No problem, we can just use this code instead:

echo dirname( get_bloginfo('stylesheet_url') )
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Ian Stewart on July 4, 2008 at 7:36 am said:

Thanks for catching my coding gaffes, John. And for the vote of support on the Trac proposal.

I’ll take your advice and clean up my code.
Samir on July 4, 2008 at 2:45 pm said:

Hi,

Very good post i may need this in my development too.Tanks a bunch for the knowledege.

Regards,
Sam.
Alister Cameron // Blogologist on July 4, 2008 at 8:59 pm said:

My feeling is that in future — as rightly predicted and advanced by Ian — the notion of parent/child themes will settle down as a ‘standard’. Now, if that is true, I think the child theme deserves its own bloginfo variable/s.

I would want to suggest that John’s

echo dirname( get_bloginfo('stylesheet_url') )

is just too obscure. I am no programmer but I personally think that what’s being discussed here regarding bloginfo speaks to a bigger issue with WordPress as a whole: there is no structured approach to WordPress variables, and no standardization on how to call them up.

Why not borrow some OO thinking here? I’d like to see all theming related variables in a “class” which the themer can extend to at will. No more of one set up variables for WordPress core, and then an “options” approach to theme-specific variables. Damn, I wish I could express myself properly in programming-speak.

What I want is proper object-orientation to WordPress data so that I can extend and customize thru my theme as I please. I know PHP is not Java and I know there are relatively few classes in WP, but I’d suggest that the most muscley bits of WP code are the ones that are written as classes, and since it’s in this whole area of templates, themes and such that most WP users DO want to customize and extend, why is it not precisely HERE that we design a more OO structure to it all so that there is a much cleaner and more structured approach to handling the data and the customization?

Maybe I’ll just go ahead and make a start myself…

Cheers,

-Alister

—
Alister Cameron // Blogologist
http://www.alistercameron.com

Mob. 04 0404 5555

(Fax removed at Ian’s request!!! Ha ha)
Jenny on July 4, 2008 at 9:07 pm said:

I still don’t get it.
Alister Cameron // Blogologist on July 4, 2008 at 9:17 pm said:

To Jenny and those who don’t get it…

Download and install the Sandbox theme. Then download and install any of the themes that were entrants in the sandbox theme competition at sndbx.org.

When these are installed, they “require” the sandbox theme. They indicate this (as Lloyd explains above), by using a “WordPress template declaration” at the top of their style.css file. It’s something WordPress looks for and knows what to do with.

Here’s what an example template declaration thingy looks like:

/* THEME NAME: Your Child Theme Name Here THEME URI: http://www.your-domain-here-if-you-promote-your-theme.com/theme-location DESCRIPTION: A description of your child theme. VERSION: your version number here AUTHOR: Your Name Here AUTHOR URI: http://your-domain-here.com/ TEMPLATE: sandbox (or vanilla, or thematic, etc) */

Stick that at the top of your theme’s CSS file. Stick that in a folder called, say, MyTheme, and when you look in the WordPress Admin’s theme page, you’ll see MyTheme as an theme choice to load. Assuming you have Sandbox in there, and you click MyTheme, it will load and will apply YOUR CSS file, instead of the default Sandbox one, altho it will use all the Sandbox theme/template files instead of yours. It will also override functions.php if you have a file by that name in your theme folder.

That’s brief, but I hope illuminating.

Ian, these two comments amount to more blogging on your site in one day, than on my own blog in the better part of two months!! Nuts.

Cheers,

-Alister

—
Alister Cameron // Blogologist
http://www.alistercameron.com

Mob. 04 0404 5555
Fax 03 8610 0050
Allan Cole on July 5, 2008 at 12:27 am said:

This will make life soooo much easier in the long run. I’m surprised this technique isn’t talked about more often.

I think I may know of a temporary work-around for the trac issue if I understand it correctly. I stumbled on an ancient plugin code over at wpelements.com that might do the trick. I’ve written about it here, but it basically gives you a way to redirect your post template files based on the post’s category or ID #. Not being a PHP expert I would assume that you could simply edit the return TEMPLATEPATH . to point to the child theme directory (if necessary). Also, I’m pretty sure you could get away with adding this tiny bit of code to the functions.php file itself rather than taking the plugin route. I could be way off with this as I haven’t had anytime to actually test this work-around out.

Lastly, Ian I love the new redesign (I suffered from redesign syndrome myself). Avenir is a lovely typeface, and it sits nicely inside of that 960 grid you have going on. PROPS.
Kristin K. Wangen on July 8, 2008 at 10:08 am said:

Is it just bloginfo(‘stylesheet_directory’) that’s deprecated? Because I didn’t find any place that said that get_bloginfo(‘stylesheet_directory’) is.

But: You can use get_stylesheet_directory_uri() if you need the url to the style only theme, and get_stylesheet_directory() for the path.
Travis on July 8, 2008 at 9:11 pm said:

My very first look at parent-child theme. Now I know what function.php is meant for =)

Currently, I just have the custom tags lying in header.php …
Ian Stewart on July 11, 2008 at 9:38 am said:

@Alister » Thanks for the extensive comments. The OO is (currently) completely over my head but I’m interested. Plus, blog more already.

@Allan » I’m going to fool around with that code and see what I can do with it. Thanks for pointing that out.

Lots of awesome comments on this post. Thanks a lot everyone.
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Daniel Martini on August 16, 2008 at 9:12 pm said:

Ian, I just wanted to say you have done a magnificent job building Thematic. If is one of the most well coded themes I have seen and I have seen many. That it is a theme framework as well only makes its potential stronger and much more interesting. I will keep this short because I want to write you a longer message to discuss some things about the fundamentals of Thematic with you and this comment box isn’t going give me enough room for it. Nonetheless, please look for my email shortly and accept my profound thanks and congratulations for your diligent and elegant work.
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Moi on September 2, 2008 at 12:21 am said:

I just started playing with child themes and something very funny is happening to me…

After I activate the child theme, the theme declaration at the styles file (the comments defining the theme info) are disappearing.

Has anyone seen something similar?
Gray on September 2, 2008 at 3:08 pm said:

so child themes are for circumventing the theme-modified-and-broke problem (or my-mods-got-wiped-when-i-updated). unless the theme has a built-in styling options.

but from the name, “child theme”. i assumed it would take/overide-with any template files in the child theme… just like your trac ticket said. hope it gets through! (how do i vote for it?)
Ian Stewart on September 2, 2008 at 3:45 pm said:

@Gray: It’s been approved and should be in 2.7.
Sam on September 5, 2008 at 12:03 am said:

Hey good advice. I use SM Favicon Generator. This one works great and its fast.
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Drew Strojny on September 23, 2008 at 9:33 pm said:

Great post Ian.

We just released a “premium quality” GPL theme a few weeks ago. We have implemented this clever “Child Theme” concept to make it easy for our users to upgrade and customize. Very powerful stuff. I encourage you to take a look:

http://themes.jestro.com/vigilance/
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de on October 11, 2008 at 8:25 am said:

I apologize if this question is way off base for this post, I will try to make my point quickly. It was always my intention to create a customized theme, I’ve done that with thematic. It has also been my intention to integrate zenphoto into my wordpress blog.
With my theme near completion I began looking at what needs to be done to integrate the image gallery, the problem is that the instructions are likely intended for a non-childtheme.
So to the point, would I be able to add a link to my wp menu that would take visitors to my zp gallery and then bring them back to the blog if I import the wp menu to the gallery? That seems more like custom option 2 but it looks like I need to do more research. Second question, where can I read more on this. I like your writing style but if you haven’t written the post then I probably need to find it somewhere else.

thanks
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edy on February 13, 2009 at 10:19 am said:

Big thanks for sharing
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miguel on March 3, 2009 at 9:00 pm said:

to use the custom menu, I only need to add that code do the functions.php in the child theme? or I need to change something in the header?

cause ive changed my functions.php and its not showing up.

any clue?

really BIG thanks.
- Ian Stewart on March 3, 2009 at 9:17 pm said:
  
  There was some outdated code in the post (that I’ve now updated). Replace globalnav_menu in your code snippet with wp_page_menu. And check out the new guide to thematic customization.
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Mascali on March 24, 2009 at 3:18 am said:

Thank you for this great lesson.
A question, please: no conflict with plugin and his css?
Thanks

p.s. “Subscribe without commenting” what plugin is?
baby prams on March 26, 2009 at 6:54 pm said:

This is invaluable info. Thanks so much. I was having trouble updating the favicon.
I’ll be using all of this info for my own blog.
Big thanks once again.
Alexa on April 2, 2009 at 10:17 am said:

Hi – I didn’t discover this until I have made changes to the parent theme. Can you tell me the easy way to take basically the entire theme I have now and make it the Child Theme? Then, I can reinstall the parent clean – I have the files as actually an update was just released and that’s what made me realize my mistake. I am using the premium theme Mimbo Pro 2.0 and they pointed me to your site.

I just need what’s currently live to become the child theme, then I’d be able to move forward with updates. Thanks for the help – Alexa
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Barb on April 24, 2009 at 1:05 pm said:

How do you handle meta tags with keywords and other important info?
- Ian Stewart on April 24, 2009 at 1:15 pm said:
  
  Usually with a plugin like Platinum SEO or Headspace.
Barb on April 24, 2009 at 9:44 pm said:

Thanks!
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daron on April 29, 2009 at 8:34 am said:

OMG! Setting up a wordpress blog! I decided to install wordpress on my clara hosted server. I wanted a little more flexibility when editing the CSS than i got by setting up a simple free online wordpress blog. Soooo!……eventually i install wordpress open up the interface…setting up the mysql using the wordpress website info is useless…had to go here for coherent instructions http://www.everydayiselectionday.com/2008/07/22/a-beginners-guide-to-installing-wordpress/ The interface all looks very similar….but then…..where is all that ease of use functionality that you get when you sign up for a free blog….GONE! Editing is much more convoluted and involves knowledge of a lot of CSS. What happened?….i even struggle for 8 hours to add a home button to Thematic….Problem is i know this stuff is fairly easy to edit….but no one online is explaining it well enough….for instance i found you code for adding a home button to the functions.php in child theme folder. When i went to add it it was already in there? I didn’t put it there….So now what…so it’s in there already….i still don’t know how to add a home button…..This must one of the simplest things to do….but it’s impossibly hard to find any kind of jargon free explanation. WordPressed?….Depressed!
- Ian Stewart on April 29, 2009 at 8:39 am said:
  
  Whoah! Check out the ThemeShaper Forums for now. That should get you started.
  - daron on April 29, 2009 at 4:26 pm said:
    
    Thanks Ian, actually i ended up making quite a lot of headway today. Initially it’s quite daunting but I’m getting there. Before I embark on trying to find a solution to another problem I have encountered maybe i could ask your advice. I’ve added a ‘home’ button to thematic and when it’s selected it shows all my blogs. Over in the sidebar i have categories/topics buttons. When i click on a topic i get a list of blogs posted in that topic. I would like to see the images associated with these posts but i don’t?
    
    My question is….is it possible?
    
    Here is a link to the blog so you can see what i mean…click on ‘Maisie loves’ in the sidebar. http://www.maisiefantaisie.co.uk/blog/wordpress/
  - Ian Stewart on April 30, 2009 at 2:58 pm said:
    
    Absolutely possible. But it’s more of a forum response to answer it. Try asking in the forums.
  - alvin on December 7, 2009 at 7:13 pm said:
    
    Hi ,
    
    im new to child theme actually its my first time to know this. I’m just wondering who to insert certain codes like javascript (adsense ) in your child theme since all i’m seeing is that you just have to create a style.css / function.php
    
    sorry if my question doesn’t make anysense.
  - daron on April 29, 2009 at 7:04 pm said:
    
    Well…..I’ve been looking through the forum and found the advanced-excerpts plug-in which solved my problem nicely. While I’m here I’d like to say thanks for a really stylish blog…….in my opinion it’s wordpress theme I’ve seen. Thanks.
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Toon on May 7, 2009 at 3:38 pm said:

I like the Thematic too, but how do you so much in the page bottom???
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Bryan on May 28, 2009 at 5:53 am said:

I am lost, how do I get my site working with wp-thread-comment and my tag does not work since I added the function.php file from junction child theme… help?

I posted a forum topic here:
http://themeshaper.com/forums/topic/help-wp-thread-comment-ajax-comment-problem-again
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Trevor on June 16, 2009 at 4:55 pm said:

Hey, I have no problem changing the css to customize. But I don’t know much about php. So I’m a little confused about updating the functions.php file. Any tips on where I can go to learn to (ex.) add a Login link to the header, or ul of images in the sidebar that link to Facebook, flickr etc… That type of thing. I can do it in a regular theme when I can just jump in the actual header.php file or sidebar.php file, but using a child theme and a separate functions.php file is where I get stumped. Any help would be appreciated.

TIA
Steve on July 22, 2009 at 9:23 am said:

Okay – I am sold. I have a customized theme (we’ll call it ORIGINAL) done WITHOUT using the child theme approach. How do I back out of ORIGINAL and make my theme a child (DERIVATIVE), without starting over? Could I just change the name of ORIGINAL to SOMTHINGELSE, then create a folder called ORIGINAL, and put the style.css file in that folder?
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Dan Smart on August 27, 2009 at 6:25 am said:

Of course the fun comes when people start using Child Themes, and distributing them, and then you want to make a child of a child theme…
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Arie Putranto on September 26, 2009 at 4:46 pm said:

Hi Ian, I’m currently doing a lot of reading about ‘Theme Framework’ and ‘Parent-Child Theme’ thing … I came across hybrid and eventually found thematic (weird huh, whilst Thematic was born first?).

Tell me, if I have a lot functions written, should I create another framework?
If all developers create framework, who will do the design?

Pleasure to read your stuff Ian, thx
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Eric on October 11, 2009 at 9:23 pm said:

Currently, only two overriding files are recognized in WordPress Child Themes, style.css and functions.php (unless my proposal for 2.7 makes it in).

Update/FYI: http://codex.wordpress.org/Theme_Development#Theme_Template_Files

Additionally (as of WordPress 2.7), the child theme may contain template files, which can be selected in the admin panel as normal, and will override the parent’s template files where those possess the same name.
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Adriaan Fenwick on December 14, 2009 at 1:41 am said:

Could you please share how you went about creating your “Whos’ behind ThemeShaper?” section in the footer of your site’s template using Thematic?
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Best Coffee Makers on January 2, 2010 at 11:58 am said:

Is it just bloginfo(‘stylesheet_directory’) that’s deprecated? Because I didn’t find any place that said that get_bloginfo(‘stylesheet_directory’) is.

But: You can use get_stylesheet_directory_uri() if you need the url to the style only theme, and get_stylesheet_directory() for the path.

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How I used a WordPress Child Theme To Redesign My Blog

First, Make a Functions.php File

How To Add a Favicon To Your WordPress Child Theme

How To Add a Custom Stylesheet To Your WordPress Child Theme

How To Customize Your WordPress Child Theme Menu

Custom Menu One: Modify The Page Output

Custom Menu Two: Make It Totally Custom

More On WordPress Parent-Child Themes

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124 thoughts on “How I used a WordPress Child Theme To Redesign My Blog”

First, Make a Functions.php File

How To Add a Favicon To Your WordPress Child Theme

How To Add a Custom Stylesheet To Your WordPress Child Theme

How To Customize Your WordPress Child Theme Menu

Custom Menu One: Modify The Page Output

Custom Menu Two: Make It Totally Custom

More On WordPress Parent-Child Themes

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Like this:

124 thoughts on “How I used a WordPress Child Theme To Redesign My Blog”