Do you need a child theme for a child theme?

[carder]

Hello everyone

very new to Genesis framework - for that I apologise.

I have Genesis and a premium pro theme, Cook'd from Feast Design.

If Feast were to release a new version of the Cook'd theme would it overwrite any changes I have made to it?... so would I need to make a Child theme of the Child theme?

Does that make sense?

It's just that I'm a little unfamiliar with Genesis and thought that they way it and it's child themes are designed MIGHT be different to themes without Frameworks?

My suspicion is "Yes - you need a Childtheme of the Child theme" and I know how to do that - just wanted to check and see what "the norm: is?

cheers
Craig R.
Brisbane, Australia

[Victor Font]

No, you shouldn't do that. Child themes are rarely, if ever, updated by developers. All of your changes should be made to the child theme only. If there ever is a release of a child theme, the changes would only be minor. The true functionality comes from the the Genesis Framework. Never make changes to the framework.

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Regards,

Victor
https://victorfont.com/
Call us toll free: 844-VIC-FONT (842-3668)
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[carder]

Hey Victor - thanks for reading and replying.

The scenario was that I need to change the Body font size.

The place to change seems to be in styles.css since there is nothing available in the customizer for font changes.

I thought that if Feast Design release an update, they might release a new styles.css and overwrite my changes.

The do have a section in customizer called "Additional CSS" - I guess all CSS changes should be made there?

Also, sometimes, to get extra functionality, you update functions.php which you normally do in the child theme. Where would you make changes to that in case of a new version of functions.php is released?

If there is some documentation I should have read/be reading right now I'd be VERY happy to be given a push in the right direction.

cheers
Craig R.
Brisbane, Australia

[Andrea Rennick]

I thought that if Feast Design release an update, they might release a new styles.css and overwrite my changes.

Even if the original theme was updated, you are never going to get an upgrade notice on your site. Child themes do not do this.

Edit the child theme directly.

On top of that, wp does not support child themes of child themes.

As soon as you edit your own child theme, you now have your own custom child theme.

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[Victor Font]

The best place to learn about how WordPress handles child themes is https://codex.wordpress.org/Child_Themes.

If you use the new WordPress Additional CSS area of the customizer, keep in mind that anything you put here is applied at the site level as inline CSS. This means that if you change to a different theme later, you could experience unexpected results. I would make CSS changes directly in style.css. The same applies to functions.php. As Andrea and I have pointed out, this is the purpose of child themes. They are designed to be customized to your tastes.

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Regards,

Victor
https://victorfont.com/
Call us toll free: 844-VIC-FONT (842-3668)
Have you requested your free website audit yet?

[carder]

Thanks Victor and Andrea

I appreciate the pointer to the child themes documentation - I knew how to do that already but it will usefl to bokmark the official documentation.

The response from Feast Design was:
Hi Craig,

When updating a child theme you will lose customizations to the theme files. We recommend keeping a log of the changes you make so that you can easily add them back in in the event updating your theme is necessary.

Hope that helps!

Which, to my mind, defeats the purpose of having a child theme

Anyways, if that's the way it's done, then that's the way it's done.

thank you for taking the time to reply - I appreciate it.

cheers
Craig R.
Brisbane, Australia

[Andrea Rennick]

"in in the event updating your theme is necessary."

((% of the time it is not necessary.

Security updates go in Genesis. 99% of child theme updates are styling fixes or organizational changes.

I have never seen any fix that had to be ported back to a customized child theme. Anything that would be that drastic would involve a whole new theme.

(i'm official support so this is the official stance.)

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**forum signature**
If you need technical support for your theme please file a ticket.

The forums are community based. Staff only monitors the forum for issues relating to the forum itself and to redirect users to where they need to go.

[carder]

thank you Andrea - thank you for taking the time to educate me - I'm most grateful

Craig R.
Brisbane, Australia

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