How to edit GeneratePress Child (or another theme) without activating it?

Hi Victor,

I'm not exactly sure if I understand the question but GP's child theme works like any other child theme.

I would say that the easiest way to do this is to start a staging site with a child theme activated, then make all the necessary changes there.

Once you are ready, just copy the child theme and activate it on your production site.

Hope this helps.

Hi Leo, thanks for the response. I just want to make changes to a nonlive theme and save those changes without forced activation. I've looked into several staging plugin apps but they seem needlessly complicated or I'd lose the website editing tools because of how the staging works. If you have any suggestions, I'm all ears.

It's frustrating because child theme indicates to me that it itself should be a staging theme and changes made to it shouldn't automatically push to the parent.

Hi there,

I am not sure if there is some confusion here but:

if you're using the WordPress Theme Editor, the theme doesn't have to be active for it to be editable. Simply select the theme you want to edit:

https://www.screencast.com/t/u6l2CmsXy

Those changes can be saved without the theme being active.

Alternative, use an Desktop IDE to edit your Child Theme files. This can either be on a local file, that is zipped up and uploaded when you're ready. Or via SFTP connection to the theme folders on your server.

However i am not sure if this is the answer you're looking for.

Is there a simple way to keep a theme or child in staging and having the ability to edit using GeneratePress/other editor plugins?

I just want to edit a theme with all of my current data on my main site (blog posts, etc) and be able to save and not publish it.

This sounds like you want to make changes to Post content or other plugin or GP Customizer settings.
Child Themes have no bearing on the changes you make elsewhere in WP aside from the following things listed here:

https://docs.generatepress.com/article/using-child-theme/#will-i-lose-my-changes-when-i-add-a-child-theme

Let me know if i am misunderstanding the requirement.

Yeah that's exactly it, I want to be able to make changes to a theme using plugins without publishing.

I read through your link and didn't see a solution though as editing a child theme automatically updates the parent file and is unable to save changes just to the child. Am I mistaken?

What changes are you wanting to make to the child theme ?

Primarily changes to the layout using the GeneratePress plugin. I.e, margin/padding changes to the homepage, how things are displayed on homepage, what's displayed, etc, etc. What do you suggest?

Apart from the changes listed here, all Customizer settings are saved in your database. Which theme ( parent or child ) is active is irrelevant.

For example:

If you enable the Child Theme and made changes to say the Customizer > Layout > Container Padding and published those changes.
And then you switched back to the Parent Theme, the changes made whilst the child was enabled, will still be applied.

If you want to make changes in the Customizer without publishing them. Then you can Save them as Draft, and publish them later:

https://www.screencast.com/t/4YRp53em