Experimenting With WordPress Child Themes
8I have a lot of experience in coding good old fashioned WordPress themes, but I’ve never really delved into the prospect of working with “child” themes.
After reading countless blog posts by Justin Tadlock and Ian Stewart about how great WordPress child themes are, I decided to give it a shot.
I found a really awesome tutorial today that teaches you how to make a “child theme” for WordPress. Thanks to that tutorial, I have now created a WordPress child theme of Thematic, which is now visible on this blog.
Now I know this is no Junction, but keep in mind my design skills aren’t that great. Basically all this child theme does is override a few lines of CSS to change up the header a bit, as well as alter the color scheme.
Even though I recorded a video review of the Thematic theme, I didn’t really realize its potential as a theme framework at the time. Hopefully soon I can start experimenting more deeply with all of the custom hooks available in the Thematic theme.
Oh, and in case anyone is wondering what I decided to call my child theme…it’s called Monochromatic. While I haven’t officially released it, feel free to view the source and use/modify it for yourself.
Well, I think it’s looking cool.
Glad to see you experimenting with Child Themes, Leland.
Thanks Ian, I appreciate the feedback!
Hi Leland, it seems like a lot of us are getting our heads around the child theme concept, a powerful new approach to blog design, especially when WP 2.7 is released.
I like the stripped down look of your themes, it would make a great jumping off point for more designs. Nice!
Hey marti, I’d have to agree with you about the child themes. It is indeed an exciting concept. Thanks for the comment!
Some time ago I started with Veryplaintxt (sandbox), for coders a major innovation but even more cryptic for this amateur than plain css. I like the idea of Thematic, but am gunshy, and perhaps you can help.
My site will use two out of four categories to offer serialized pages (text-book type), one is a blog. I want to use a different header for each category, and apparently I can do that easier with thematic? (Y/N)?
Is it also easier to order the sequence of articles or pages, re-order that sequence somewhat or do I need a separate plugin for that?
All else I can probably handle, but the above I have trouble with. Will Thematic help me there?
I know that veryplaintxt validates w/o a glitch, and I trust Thematic and this child do as well. This child here is the most attractive alternative to plaintxt, and I want to try it. Just had to say thanks here, above all, for what you created.
Very nice theme!
I’ve downloaded it and might use it for my novel site (yet to launch) as part of NaNoWriMo.