Your opinion please – general question about how theme upgrades should work

[Blizzard]

First of all, let me just say that I've been using the Genesis Framework for around 3 years and I've been very happy with the themes and also the support. Thank you!

I have a general question about how theme upgrades and child themes are supposed to work. I posted on wordpress.org, but I thought I'd try here as well since there seems to be a good community here.

I decided to try using the free "Responsive" theme, and I've had quite a few problems crop up since I upgraded the parent theme from 1.9.3 to 1.9.3.3. I'm reading this article: http://cyberchimps.com/forum-topic/how-to-upgrade/ and I am a little confused.

Note I am NOT asking for support with my problem with this theme - I just want general opinions on what they are saying about the upgrade.

I really thought if I had a child theme with a full style sheet, problems like layout, responsive behavior, etc. would not crop up if I upgraded the parent theme. I thought this was true of any framework. The notes in the article above say "In the short-term you will lose most if not all of your customizations upon upgrading (however, please note that the previous versions theme folder will not be overwritten – however, you should absolutely back it and your database up before upgrading as always anyways). Even if you're using a child theme, this is simply unavoidable. It's the nature of progress."

I have never heard of this being the case and thought this was exactly the opposite of what is supposed to happen when you have a child theme. I have NEVER encountered anything like this in the many, many times I have upgrades the Genesis Framework on a site.

I simply do not have time (or probably the skills) to diagnose and fix all of the problems that have occurred with my site now that I have upgraded. I am going to have to revert to the previous version of the theme. This scares me because I know it's not a best practice to have an older version of a theme, and I worry about future security risks.

I guess I am just asking...is what the Responsive theme developers claim about needing to make adjustments EVEN TO YOUR CHILD THEME legit in the grand scheme of things? Or is this a bucket of hogwash? Obviously this theme has gotten good reviews or wordpress.org, but I am super frustrated!!

[David Chu]

Hi,
I've used Responsive. It was even my homepage for a short stint.

You're right, in principle, a theme upgrade should work fine if you're addressing it with a child theme.

I just looked at that link, though - this is an extenuating circumstance. The whole theme's framework is changing. The drift I got is that Cyberchimps is going to "shoehorn" Responsive into their framework. So Emil's good stuff won't be used anymore. They evidently want to standardize their operation so that all their themes use one framework.

That's a very big change, so there could easily be consequences. So sorry, no easy answer here. If you had paid money for it, then maybe you could hold someone's feet to the fire.

Very typical corporate takeover behavior. In the software world, the same thing happens with any "fork".

Dave

---

Dave Chu · Custom WordPress Developer – likes collaborating with Designers

[Author]

Posts