Creating a WordPress Child Theme: An Easy Beginner's Guide

WordPress There will come a point in your blog where you'll want to make changes to your theme, but if you modify the parent theme directly, your changes will be lost in updates. That's where child themes come in. Child themes provide a safe way to modify a parent theme while still getting the functionality of the parent theme.

In this article, we'll teach you everything you need to know about creating a WordPress child theme. Don't worry, it's easy enough for beginners to follow along!

What is a WordPress child theme?

A WordPress child theme is a theme that inherits the features and style of its parent theme, but can be customized to your liking. Creating a WordPress child theme is a safe way to ensure that your modifications don't disappear when the parent theme is updated.

Let's dive a little deeper into why you need child themes and what they can do for you.

1. Modifying a secure theme: We don't have to touch the parent theme file directly, so we don't have to worry about our changes being blown away when the theme is updated.
2. Easy updates: If the parent theme changes to a new version, the modifications you make in the child theme will be preserved, which is really important for the security and functionality of your website.
3. Optimize performance: You can put only what you need in your child theme, which reduces unnecessary code and makes your website faster.
4. Efficient development: The code in the parent and child themes is neatly separated, making code management much easier.

There are some cool things you can do with child themes.

• You can customize the look of your website.
• You can add new features or remove features you don't need.
• Make your website faster.
• You can keep your brand's unique look.

A word of caution, though: making too many changes can actually slow down your site, so it's best to only make changes that are absolutely necessary.

In conclusion, WordPress child themes are a powerful tool to make your website more secure, flexible, and efficient. They make it easier and safer to create and manage your own unique website.

Creating a WordPress Child Theme: A Step-by-Step Guide

1. Prepare the necessary files

First, create a new folder for your child theme. If your parent theme is called Kadence, let's name the child theme 'kadence-child'. Inside this folder, create two files.

• style.css
• functions.php

When you write and save the file contents, the full path looks like this

• WordPress installation directory/wp-content/themes/kadence-child/style.css
• WordPress installation directory/wp-content/themes/kadence-child/functions.php

To create the file, you can use the default Windows app, Notepad. Note that when you save, you must change the file format to ' All files (*.*) ' in the name of the project.

2. Create a style.css file

In your style.css file, write something like this

/*
Theme Name: Kadence Child
Theme URI: https://www.kadencewp.com/
Description: Child theme for Kadence
Author: Your Name
Author URI: http://yoursite.com
Template: kadence
Version: 1.0.0
Β */

/* Write any additional CSS here */

CSS code commentary

This CSS code can be found in the WordPress Important information about the child theme's identityLet's take a look at what each line means.

1. Theme Name: The name of the child theme we've created, in this case 'Kadence Child'.
2. Theme URI: This is the official website address for the theme. I've linked to the official site for the Cadence theme.
3. Description: This is where you write a short description of your theme.
4. Author: Please include the name of the person who created the child theme.
5. Author URI: This is where you write the website address of the theme's creator.
6. Template: This is really important! You need to write the exact name of the parent theme, which in this case is 'kadence'.
7. VersionIndicates the version of the child theme.

The comments on the last line are a place for you to add any additional styling you'd like, which you can do here.

3. Create the functions.php file

In your functions.php file, write something like this

<?php
function kadence_child_enqueue_styles() {
    wp_enqueue_style( 'parent-style', get_template_directory_uri() . '/style.css' );
    wp_enqueue_style( 'child-style', get_stylesheet_directory_uri() . '/style.css', array( 'parent-style' ) );
}
add_action( 'wp_enqueue_scripts', 'kadence_child_enqueue_styles' );

// Write additional functions here

PHP code commenting

This PHP code plays an important role in allowing the child theme to import the parent theme's styles while still applying its own styling. Let's take a look at what the code does:

1. kadence_child_enqueue_styles() function, which is responsible for loading the stylesheets of the parent and child themes.
2. wp_enqueue_style() function to register and load stylesheets.
   - The first line imports the parent theme's style.css.
   - The second line imports the child theme's style.css, which we set to apply after the parent theme's stylesheet.
3. add_action() function tells WordPress to execute the function we created when it loads the style.

The last comment is a space for you to write any additional PHP functions you want, which you can do here.

4. Activate the child theme

Once you've created your child theme, it's time to activate it. Follow these steps to activate your child theme.

1. Log in to your WordPress admin page.
2. In the left menu, click "Appearance" > "Themes".
3. Locate your newly created child theme (for example, 'Kadence Child').
4. When you hover over the child theme, an 'Activate' button appears. Click this button.
5. After activation is complete, you'll see a "Theme changed" message.
6. Check the frontend of your website to make sure that the child theme has been applied correctly.
7. If you're having trouble, double-check your child theme's style.css and functions.php files.
8. After activating the child theme, you can make additional settings in 'Appearance' > 'Customize' as needed.

This will successfully activate the child theme and allow you to safely modify it.

Finalize

Creating a WordPress child theme isn't as hard as you think, is it? Now you'll be able to make your blog look even better. If you have any questions, feel free to ask in the comments. Let's grow as bloggers together!

As a side note, after creating a child theme, I sometimes want to customize a codeblock that I use occasionally and often on my developer blog. Prettying up WordPress code blocks - Highlighting code with PrismJS This post will help you realize that wish!