WordPress: Building Child Themes

Learn how to customize your WordPress site with child themes.

Introduction

• Level up to WordPress developer
• What you need to know
• Using the exercise files

1. Building on a Solid Foundation

• Set up a local development environment
• Set up a code editor
• Use real content

2. Creating a Child Theme

• What is a child theme?
• Picking a parent theme
• Creating and activating a child theme
• Including stylesheets
• Best practices for including stylesheets

3. Child Themes and CSS

• Employing the laziness principle
• Designing in the browser
• Modify existing styles
• Add new styles
• Challenge: Add flair
• Solution: Add flair

4. Working with Function Files

• Understanding functions.php
• Finding functions in the parent theme
• Modify a pluggable function
• Hooks, filters, and action
• Filter a function
• Hooking functions
• Challenge: Change posted by
• Solution: Change posted by

5. Working with Template Files

• Template hierarchy in WordPress
• Changing an existing template
• Add new template files
• Managing backward compatibility
• Challenge: Custom 404 page
• Solution: Custom 404 page

6. Add New Functionality

• Finding existing functionality
• Add a menu
• Change menu output with properties
• Style new menu with CSS
• Challenge: Conditional widgetized area
• Solution: Conditional widgetized area

7. Wrapping Up

• Shiny new web fonts
• Adding a screenshot
• Migrating files to your live site

Conclusion

• Next steps