How I used a WordPress Child Theme To Redesign My Blog

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() { ?>
  1.     <link rel="shortcut icon" href="<?php echo bloginfo('stylesheet_directory') ?>/images/favicon.ico">
  2. <?php }
  3.  
  4. 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.

  1. function childtheme_iefix() { ?>
  2.     <!–[if lt IE 8]>
  3.  <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="<?php echo bloginfo('stylesheet_directory') ?>/ie.css" />
  4.     <![endif]–>
  5. <?php }
  6.  
  7. 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.

  1. function childtheme_menu() {
  2.  $menu = '<div id="menu"><ul>';
  3.  // Note the include below. It only shows pages with those IDs. Change the ID number to whatever you like.
  4.  $menu .= str_replace( array( "\r", "\n", "\t" ), '', wp_list_pages('include=24,27,28&title_li=&sort_column=menu_order&echo=0') );
  5.  $menu .= "</ul></div>\n";
  6.     echo $menu;
  7. }
  8.  
  9. 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.

  1. function childtheme_menu() { ?>
  2. <div id="menu">
  3. <ul>
  4.  <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>
  5.  <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>
  6.  <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>
  7. </ul>
  8. </div>
  9.  
  10. <?php }
  11.  
  12. 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!

Don't forget: You should follow me on twitter here.

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51 Comments

  1. Posted July 3, 2008 at 4:02 am | Permalink

    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?

  2. Posted July 3, 2008 at 5:06 am | Permalink

    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.

  3. Posted July 3, 2008 at 4:04 pm | Permalink

    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.

  4. Posted July 3, 2008 at 4:06 pm | Permalink

    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.

  5. Posted July 3, 2008 at 7:19 pm | Permalink

    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

  6. Posted July 3, 2008 at 7:32 pm | Permalink

    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? ;)

  7. Posted July 3, 2008 at 10:03 pm | Permalink

    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.

  8. Posted July 3, 2008 at 10:12 pm | Permalink

    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.

  9. Posted July 3, 2008 at 10:15 pm | Permalink

    … 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.

  10. Posted July 4, 2008 at 7:16 am | Permalink

    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') )

  11. Posted July 4, 2008 at 7:36 am | Permalink

    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.

  12. Posted July 4, 2008 at 2:45 pm | Permalink

    Hi,

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

    Regards,
    Sam.

  13. Posted July 4, 2008 at 8:59 pm | Permalink

    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)

  14. Posted July 4, 2008 at 9:07 pm | Permalink

    I still don’t get it. :(

  15. Posted July 4, 2008 at 9:17 pm | Permalink

    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

  16. Posted July 5, 2008 at 12:27 am | Permalink

    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.

  17. Posted July 8, 2008 at 10:08 am | Permalink

    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.

  18. Posted July 8, 2008 at 9:11 pm | Permalink

    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 …

  19. Posted July 11, 2008 at 9:38 am | Permalink

    @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.

  20. Posted August 16, 2008 at 9:12 pm | Permalink

    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.

  21. Posted September 2, 2008 at 12:21 am | Permalink

    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?

  22. Posted September 2, 2008 at 3:08 pm | Permalink

    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?)

  23. Posted September 2, 2008 at 3:45 pm | Permalink

    @Gray: It’s been approved and should be in 2.7.

  24. Posted September 5, 2008 at 12:03 am | Permalink

    Hey good advice. I use SM Favicon Generator. This one works great and its fast.

  25. Posted September 23, 2008 at 9:33 pm | Permalink

    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/

  26. Posted October 11, 2008 at 8:25 am | Permalink

    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

  27. Posted February 13, 2009 at 10:19 am | Permalink

    Big thanks for sharing

  28. miguel
    Posted March 3, 2009 at 9:00 pm | Permalink

    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.

  29. Posted March 24, 2009 at 3:18 am | Permalink

    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?

  30. Posted March 26, 2009 at 6:54 pm | Permalink

    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.

  31. Alexa
    Posted April 2, 2009 at 10:17 am | Permalink

    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

  32. Barb
    Posted April 24, 2009 at 1:05 pm | Permalink

    How do you handle meta tags with keywords and other important info?

  33. Barb
    Posted April 24, 2009 at 9:44 pm | Permalink

    Thanks!

  34. Posted April 29, 2009 at 8:34 am | Permalink

    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!

    • Posted April 29, 2009 at 8:39 am | Permalink

      Whoah! :) Check out the ThemeShaper Forums for now. That should get you started.

      • Posted April 29, 2009 at 4:26 pm | Permalink

        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/

      • Posted April 29, 2009 at 7:04 pm | Permalink

        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.

  35. Posted May 7, 2009 at 3:38 pm | Permalink

    I like the Thematic too, but how do you so much in the page bottom???

  36. Posted May 28, 2009 at 5:53 am | Permalink

    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

  37. Trevor
    Posted June 16, 2009 at 4:55 pm | Permalink

    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

  38. Posted July 22, 2009 at 9:23 am | Permalink

    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?

  39. Posted August 27, 2009 at 6:25 am | Permalink

    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…

  40. Posted September 26, 2009 at 4:46 pm | Permalink

    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

  41. Eric
    Posted October 11, 2009 at 9:23 pm | Permalink

    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.

  42. Posted December 14, 2009 at 1:41 am | Permalink

    Could you please share how you went about creating your “Whos’ behind ThemeShaper?” section in the footer of your site’s template using Thematic?

  43. Posted January 2, 2010 at 11:58 am | Permalink

    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.

  44. Posted January 13, 2010 at 3:38 pm | Permalink

    Hey Ian, I’m a little late getting to this post but found it very helpful. I just want to say I am glad your Trac proposal made it through. Excited about the possibilities by using Child themes.

    By the way, looks like WangenWeb has moved.

    -Josh

  45. Posted April 30, 2009 at 2:58 pm | Permalink

    Absolutely possible. But it’s more of a forum response to answer it. Try asking in the forums.

  46. Posted December 7, 2009 at 7:13 pm | Permalink

    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.

60 Trackbacks

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  5. [...] number of child themes which largely make use of Thesis but with whatever customizations you want: How I used a WordPress Child Theme To Redesign My Blog The SmartWay __________________ Rick Beckman, a Kingdom Geek My custom.css for Thesis Thesis is worth every [...]

  6. [...] 2. Use child themes. This is how things really take off! Child themes in my opinion are the future. 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. From what I’ve head from Wordpress version 2.7 it will be possible to overwrite all the template files with your own, making the update of your blog and customization so much easier. (For more informations about child themes visit here and here) [...]

  7. [...] start your journey into Thematic click here. addthis_pub = ‘admin@wpremixx.com’; addthis_logo = [...]

  8. [...] themeshaper.com/functions-php-wordpress-child-themes [...]

  9. By IAMWW » Calf-Point WordPress Theme on August 21, 2008 at 10:21 pm

    [...] Perassi has created Calf Point, a child theme of Sandbox based on Moo-Point. It was not possible to import the slightly changed menu but the CSS [...]

  10. [...] themeshaper.com/functions-php-wordpress-child-themes [...]

  11. By Josh Pesavento » Blog Archive » New theme! on August 28, 2008 at 11:30 pm

    [...] a simpler theme was needed for this site, so I found a fairly basic theme, then modified it using a child theme. The colours come from a photo of mine, and were extracted using the inspiration tool (you can [...]

  12. By New theme | Only Network on September 1, 2008 at 5:05 am

    [...] problems. I’m not 100% certain I’ll be keeping this, but I wanted to experiment with child themes and see what benefits they [...]

  13. [...] Part of the reason I used Thematic at CircuitDesign.info was because of its ability to do a child theme (See: How I used a WordPress Child Theme To Redesign My Blog The Smart Way). [...]

  14. [...] for users who wish to do slight customization without too much hassle you can take advantage of the many tutorials Ian has written on creating child themes. There are even many free child themes of Thematic available including [...]

  15. [...] Actually Sakeena is Sandbox’ child’s theme. (Well, I’ve got to know of “child’s theme” thanks to using MNML and visiting the authors blog ThemeShaper). In my opinion, if anybody is interested in the opinion of ordinary user, the concept of such themes is simply great. I have “overheard” that perhaps such themes will made into Wordpress 2.7 – I will look forward to it! If you are interested in the concept, please read more on ThemeShaper’s blog. [...]

  16. By The Problem with Child Themes | Pat Dryburgh on October 4, 2008 at 2:25 pm

    [...] a lot of talk about child themes these days. As the designer of two child themes for the Thematic theme framework, I have fallen in [...]

  17. By Changes… again! | Moonlit Minds on October 6, 2008 at 5:54 pm

    [...] How I used a WordPress Child Theme To Redesign My Blog The Smart Way introduction to functions.php of Child Theme. [...]

  18. By Finally pink on October 7, 2008 at 7:40 pm

    [...] new theme is called PINKatic [download link], its a child theme of the Thematic theme designed by Pat [...]

  19. By WordPress themes for developers | geek ramblings on October 29, 2008 at 4:52 pm

    [...] also some child themes available for Thematic which show off how you can really change the layout of a site with nothing [...]

  20. [...] Wordpress Child Themes are a new concept introduced not a long time ago that allow you to inherit all of the functionality of a parent theme and overwrite the css style, change the images and some parts of the html through the use of functions.php file. We won’t go in a lot of detail on how to create a Child Theme here, but if you are interested and want to find out more please have a look here, here and here. [...]

  21. [...] talking a lot lately about how child themes are changing the face of WordPress theme community. Ian Stewart has been letting us in on this little secret for [...]

  22. By Why New York Tech Scene on December 14, 2008 at 5:35 pm

    [...] – The current theme is Thematic. The theme has a great structure and it is really simple to create child themes to customize the look. If anyone has any suggestions or would be able to help with the design of [...]

  23. [...] How I used a WordPress Child Theme To Redesign My Blog The Smart Way [...]

  24. By Thematic - A problem with php on January 11, 2009 at 6:11 am

    [...] am working on a Child Theme based on the ‘Thematic‘ framework for wordpress. For more information, see the [...]

  25. [...] child theme for the Thematic theme framework by Ian Stewart. Child themes are much better explained here but essentially they allow you to create theme layouts and designs without editing the source [...]

  26. By Website Re-design | Hardian Nazief on January 25, 2009 at 12:49 am

    [...] than re-invent the wheel, i intend to create wordpress child themes with a couple tweak on the core themes. I was interested in Vigilance themes since last December [...]

  27. [...] How I Used a WordPress Child Theme to Redesign My Blog the Smart Way – Themeshaper.com [...]

  28. [...] ThemeShaper – WordPress Child Themes and functions.php [...]

  29. By 2009 Redesign | Sea Slugs! Anime Blog on February 5, 2009 at 2:43 pm

    [...] for Thematic looks to be a great deal better than that for Sandbox, but I was able to craft the child theme without too much trouble. One easy way to start is to open up the default stylesheet and then [...]

  30. [...] Use a Parent-Child Theme to rapidly jump-start theme development [...]

  31. [...] the biggest mark in the WordPress community by releasing his theme framework Thematic, as well as speaking out on Child Themes, a growing trend in WordPress theme [...]

  32. By What ? A new theme ? on February 28, 2009 at 5:02 am

    [...] theme built using the Hybrid Theme Framework. Oh, Child theme ? If you do not know what it is, read this post from Ian. But wait, who designed this theme, hmmm  blame [...]

  33. [...] their blog. One of the solutions would probably be using the parent-child theme structure as post here. Using action hooks might be the way to go, but this will definitely give a problem to those who do [...]

  34. By Child Themes | The Daily Flash on March 5, 2009 at 11:31 am

    [...] How I used a WordPress Child Theme To Redesign My Blog The Smart Way [...]

  35. [...] the biggest mark in the WordPress community by releasing his theme framework Thematic, as well as speaking out on Child Themes, a growing trend in WordPress theme [...]

  36. By diigo 04/10/2009 (a.m.) | synapsenschnappsen on April 10, 2009 at 3:35 am

    [...] How I used a WordPress Child Theme To Redesign My Blog [...]

  37. By Wordpress-only 04/11/2009 | synapsenschnappsen on April 10, 2009 at 8:14 pm

    [...] How I used a WordPress Child Theme To Redesign My Blog [...]

  38. [...] How I used a WordPress Child Theme To Redesign My Blog [...]

  39. By links for 2009-05-06 « sySolution on May 6, 2009 at 10:00 am

    [...] How I used a WordPress Child Theme To Redesign My Blog (tags: wordpress themes) [...]

  40. [...] Use a Parent-Child Theme to rapidly jump-start theme development [...]

  41. By Creating WordPress Child Themes on May 8, 2009 at 3:33 am

    [...] Themeshaper: How I used a WordPress Child Theme To Redesign My Blog The Smart Way [...]

  42. [...] with child themes? You may want to check out this post Ian Stewart [...]

  43. [...] How I Used a WordPress Child Theme to Redesign My Blog the Smart Way [...]

  44. [...] How I used a WordPress Child Theme – [...]

  45. [...] How I used a WordPress Child Theme To Redesign My Blog The Smart Way [...]

  46. [...] Stewart’s How I used a WordPress Child Theme To Redesign My Blog (Thematic [...]

  47. By Wordpress Themes demystified @ I , Me and Shakthi on August 4, 2009 at 12:49 am

    [...] How I used a WordPress Child Theme To Redesign My Blog The Smart Way [...]

  48. [...] 5. How I used a WordPress Child Theme To Redesign My Blog [...]

  49. [...] “Child themes“: pra fazer só a parte fácil (o CSS) e criar temas derivados; [...]

  50. [...] How I used a WordPress Child Theme To Redesign My Blog – by Justin Tadlock [...]

  51. [...] Edit Your Theme With Functions.php Tons of fun by adding functions to edit your theme. [...]

  52. [...] of the theme Thematic explains how to make child themes. — The alliteration is unavoidable! themeshaper.com/functions-php-wordpress-child-themes Another article by the author of Thematic: How to use custom PHP functions in your child theme. [...]

  53. [...] How I Used a WordPress Child Theme To Redesign My Blog [...]

  54. [...] you are doing this can completely transform the way you develop WordPress sites. Ian Stewart has a great writeup on how to use WordPress child themes. He’s also the guy behind Thematic, the theme I briefly demoed during the [...]

  55. [...] Read this article: How I used a WordPress Child Theme To Redesign My Blog [...]

  56. [...] http://themeshaper.com/functions-php-wordpress-child-themes/ Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)Child ThemesSentence of the day!Plugins, themes and the IA This entry was written by Gnocchi, posted on December 21, 2009 at 7:53 pm, filed under Wordpress theme/framework. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL. « Parent/Child Themes in WordPress: The Future of WordPress Themes (December 30, 2008) [...]

  57. [...] How I used a WordPress Child Theme To Redesign My Blog [...]

  58. By links for 2010-01-09 on January 9, 2010 at 3:18 am

    [...] How I used a WordPress Child Theme To Redesign My Blog it's all about the functions.php (tags: webdev howto templates theme development tutorials) [...]

  59. [...] The importance of using Parent/child themes for productivity and time saving. 2) Check out Thematic, Themeshaper, Theme Hybrid, Sandbox [...]

  60. [...] How I used a WordPress Child Theme To Redesign My Blog [...]

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