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Is a Child Theme a must have?

  • @jaja-1

    Member

    12 years, 5 months ago

    Just curious if a Child Theme is always a Must Have when you’re building or making your own theme BuddyPress proof.

    @jjj says in his article,
    http://buddypress.org/2012/04/the-default-theme/

    Surprise! bbPress already works this way, and it’s not far off for BuddyPress to inherit this new functionality, too.

    I understand they way bbPress and also Jigoshop works, just copy-/paste some template from the plugin directory into your (own) Theme and Boom it’s done. You’ve got a safe theme that will not be overwritten by Plugin or WP updates.

    But…
    http://codex.buddypress.org/theme-development/theme-dev-bp-template-pack-walkthrough-twenty-eleven-bp-1-5/

    Here they talk about making a Child Theme right from the start, and if you’re already have a Child Theme you should Go to step ….
    It doesn’t say If you like to use Twenty Eleven (without Child) it’s okay.

    So does it works without Child because i’m not a fan of it, i often duplicate and rename the Twenty Eleven and start editing stuff without making Childs.

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)

  • @modemlooper

    Moderator

    12 years, 5 months ago

    Yes. The BuddyPress template files are in the plugins folder and get written over on upgrade. It’s a safety measure to use a child theme in case you make mistakes.

    in a future BP version BP will use something like template parts and you can use any theme.

    @rogercoathup

    Participant

    12 years, 5 months ago

    No, you don’t need to use a child theme.

    You can work the way you do with Twenty Eleven – copying over the parts of bp-default that you want to reuse into a clean non-child theme. We build all our BuddyPress sites this way.

    We do it for a number of reasons: completely different layout structures, markup, and to better allow our clients to upgrade –

    If you are building a site for a client, making your site a child of bp-default is not a future proof approach. Often update releases of BuddyPress change look, feel and functional elements in bp-default – if your client upgrades their site and it is a child of bp-default, they will have these changes forced on them.

    @jaja-1

    Member

    12 years, 5 months ago

    Thanks,

    I don’t like the idea behind Child Themes either,
    People who start fresh with WP don’t understand the logic, and developers know what’s going on with new releases of WP so they know how to upgrade a theme to get new features.

    @modemlooper

    Moderator

    12 years, 5 months ago

    I disagree, by using a child you are guaranteed to have a working site on upgrades aside from the few changes made which are usually mostly cosmetic. The good thing is you can do either to fit your needs.

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
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