Where To Start??

[mechanicalbastard]

Hi All,
I am brand new to Genesis and am having some trouble figuring out best practices for building a custom child theme. I already setup a directory with functions.php and style.css and the child theme loads up correctly displaying my posts, tagline, footer and other elements.
Additionally I have read over the documentation but things are still a bit fuzzy. I can not figure out how to or under what situations do I:
- Use the parent css and/or my own
- Get a sidebar into my theme

Please forgive if I may have asked my questions incorrectly or if I used the wrong terminology. I am brand new to Genesis and have only created one or two WP themes.

I was also wondering is there any specific order that hooks should be called from the child theme and are there any hooks that SHOULD be indeed called from any/all child templates.

I thank you for any info or resources that you could help me out with in advance.

http://courtneyhall.com

[nutsandbolts]

Hi, and welcome to the Genesis community! People here are extremely helpful and you'll feel more comfortable in no time. 🙂

I always suggest that people download the Sample child theme to get an idea of where to start with creating their own. Personally, I use a modified version of Sample (where I've added and subtracted the common elements I use for all client projects) for custom work, though your mileage may vary.

There are also a number of tutorials out there to help you get started with building a custom child, as well as best practices for customization. Here are a few of them:

http://my.studiopress.com/docs/building-child-themes/ (This is the StudioPress tutorial, which you've probably already seen)

http://www.artofblog.com/building-a-genesis-child-theme/

Creating a Genesis Child Theme from Scratch of the Genesis Framework in WordPress

Building a Genesis Child Theme

http://www.wpstuffs.com/4-genesis-starter-themes-building-custom-theme/

You can also learn a ton about Genesis by following the #genesiswp hashtag on Twitter and/or joining the Genesis communities on Google+ and Facebook. Lots of designers and devs are very generous with their time and have created some amazing tutorials that they share for free, which is part of what makes Genesis awesome.

Hope that helps!

---

Andrea Whitmer, Owner/Developer, Nuts and Bolts Media
I provide development and training services for designers • Find me on Twitter and Google+

[lyndsaymoon]

Hello!

Just read this thread and wanted to ask more as I am confused (and probably a bit over excited about the possibilities!).

I would love to start making child themes and selling them, I have lot's of ideas and love working with css. But exactly what documents are required in selling a child theme, is it just the functions.php and the style.css and the Genesis framework? Would I rely on the Genesis framework setting up the layouts?

It seems to me that there are lot's of plugins to add functions onto a Genesis theme (as per all themes), so if I made a child theme, would I say you have to have "X" plugins to go with this theme and make it work? I'd feel like I have cheated a little.

I have gone though a lot of tutorials now and feel like I have missed a huge chunk of important information. So your advice on this would be very much appreciated.

Thanks 🙂

[Author]

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