[Resolved] Child Theme – create a new one or use an existing one?

[Giangerolamo]

Hi All,

I am quite new to WordPress and I need some reassurance.
I have installed the Pro version of Generate Press. I currently have a website in beta and I installed a copy of it in a subdomain to use as a sandbox to do some experiments in a controlled, non-live environment.

It seems like that for some of the changes to the UI I have in mind it is better to create a child theme.

As I see there are some GP child themes available – like Exhibit and Mantle – I assume that installing and modifying one of them can generate the same result as creating one myself without the hassle. Am I correct in my assumption?

The rationale for using a child theme is that I am not sure if the customisation I a planning to do will be erased by a future update of GP. According to multiple sources, doing them in a child theme would solve this potential problem.

PS
Congratulation to the team for creating maybe the cleanest and neatest theme available.

[Jamal]

Hi

The theme developer has provided a starter child theme if you dont want to create your own https://docs.generatepress.com/article/using-child-theme/#installing-a-child-theme

Any changes made to those other GP child theme like Exhibit will be overwritten to the best of my knowledge. More informed persons will give a difinitive answer but in the meantime you can safely use the child theme in the link above.

[Giangerolamo]

Hi Jamal,

This is already a very good answer that nails the point precisely on the head. Thank you for that.
I will try and give my feedback on the result while I wait for more answers.

Best

[Leo]

It really depends on how much customization you plan on doing outside of the customizer.

If not a lot, I would recommend sticking with Simple CSS and Code Snippets. Code in there will be fine through updates:
https://docs.generatepress.com/article/adding-css/#simple-css
https://docs.generatepress.com/article/adding-php/#code-snippets

First paragraph here explains when you should consider a child theme: https://docs.generatepress.com/article/using-child-theme/

Let us know if this answers your question 🙂

[Giangerolamo]

Leo, thanks for your additional info.

Put it simply.
First of all, remember I have little experience with WordPress, but I built some skills on Webflow. Therefore I am quite used to that way of achieving results graphically via a front-end editor.

For this reason, I started using Elementor because of similarities to the way I was working in Webflow, and because on their website, they state clearly compatibility with GeneratePress (between the few themes they claim to support).

Said that I honestly admit I have little or no idea of which sort of code Elementor generate and where.

The changes I am making are to achieve – and I am getting good results so far – an end result that is a sort of mix between Newspaper theme by tagDiv (I can provide a link to the graphical result if you wish) and Voice theme by Meks (and again, I have an example to provide).

I am clearly shying away from some excessive levels of complications both themes display, yet the end result is supposed to be a “magazine”.

The rationale for a child theme was to stay on the safe side of my assumptions that at the next upgrade I might incur in losing some customizations.

I hope the above makes some sense for the purpose of this conversation.

Best.

[Tom]

There’s definitely no harm is adding a child theme if you think you may need it at some point.

They become necessary when altering the theme templates, which usually isn’t necessary.

[Giangerolamo]

Ok. Thanks all for your precious advice.

[Tom]

Glad we could help 🙂

[Author]

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