Beginner Series Part 2 – The What, When, & How of WordPress Child Themes | EP 295

Beginner Series Part 2 – The What, When, & How of WordPress Child Themes

1. What are WordPress child themes? 00:33
   • All themes are different. Some themes update automatically and this obliterates any updates you made to the theme.
   • This is basically what a child theme is. It protects the styling of your website when you update the theme.
2. When you DON’T need it 01:14
   • It’s definitely not going to hurt you to use one, but there will be times when you don’t need it because it adds an extra step.
   • If you are just using the built-in WP settings of a theme, you don’t need a child theme.
   • Even if you are adding custom CSS, you won’t need a child theme. This isn’t updated when the theme updates.
3. When you DO need it 02:50
   • You do need a child theme anytime you make edits to the WordPress PHP files.
4. How to create a child theme 04:14
   • You can use a generator to build a child theme, such as the one over at Divi Space. You enter in your information and the website will email you your child theme. Then, you just have to upload it to your website.
   • If you head over to the WordPress repository, you can also find many plugins that we generate child themes for you.
   • The last option is to manually create one.

Thanks for listening to another episode of WP the Podcast!

If you’ve been listening to the podcast for awhile and you’ve found value out of it, we would love if you would leave us a review on iTunes! The more reviews we get for the podcast, the easier it will be for other people to discover us on iTunes. Thanks so much and see you tomorrow for another episode of WP the Podcast.