Editing Genesis files (footer.php)

[Mark Blair]

I have run into this once or twice recently and now it involves something that I would like to add to my site and again it has come up. I want to add something that involves editing the footer.php file in my theme. Problem is, that file does not exist for the child theme (eleven40 Pro) and is only available in the Genesis templates. Viewing that file displays this nice warning:

 * WARNING: This file is part of the core Genesis Framework. DO NOT edit this file under any circumstances.
 * Please do all modifications in the form of a child theme.

🙂 Not every add-on or improvement to a site can be done through plugins. Although it would be nice, this is not always an option. I am capable of working with HTML and I don't mind trying a thing or two (backups are always made just in case) but this type of warning leads me to believe I am going to totally break my site beyond repair. Of course with a proper backup that isn't likely and if a new version of Genesis Framework is released and my changes are gone, I can save a text file on my PC with those changes and just reapply them.

Now to my question - or inquiry - what does everyone else do? Do you follow this warning and NEVER update files under the Genesis templates? Or do you make limited changes only when necessary and keep good backups? I am curious.

Thanks!

[AnitaC]

What theme are you using? Please provide a link to the website you are referring to.

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Need help with customization or troubleshooting? Reach out to me.

[Mark Blair]

Both are in my post above.

Theme: eleven40 Pro
Site is in my signature: http://www.markblair.net/

Either way this is something that everyone using Genesis will see as the only templates in the child theme are:

functions.php
home.php
page_landing.php
style.css

You have to go to Genesis templates to see footer.php, header.php, page.php, etc.

[AnitaC]

Ok, I misread the eleven40 and I didn't want to assume that it was the link to your blog as you could be working on a client website or some other website. The general rule is not to edit the framework files. If you need to make adjustments to these, then you would add your code to the functions.php file with the appropriate hook.

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Need help with customization or troubleshooting? Reach out to me.

[Mark Blair]

Alright, that makes sense. 🙂 I can look into changing functions.php instead. Thanks for the info!

[Mark Blair]

anitac, do you know of any good resources that explain how to properly use hooks? I have never worked with these before and I just tried to follow the steps at this site without any success: http://wpcandy.com/teaches/how-to-use-wordpress-hooks/

The code I am trying to add to my site is found at the following site. They require that the code is added to footer.php but as you had suggested I am trying to add that code to functions.php instead and then somehow use a hook to access footer.php.
http://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-tutorials/how-to-create-a-sticky-floating-footer-bar-in-wordpress/

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

[joycegrace]

If you added a footer.php to a child theme folder, would it hold up in Genesis, or would it confuse things? I need to do this to create a network wide footer on a multisite project and not sure if it can be done with the functions file (I'm in my preliminary research stages - any advice would help).

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Find me at Joyce Grace (http://www.joycegrace.ca)

[missybunnie]

You could possibly do this by adding a footer.php to your child theme. This would override the footer.php in genesis and let you make the changes. You'd just have to be careful about when you update your child theme to make sure the changes you make are still valid and that you have a copy for when the update erases it.

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