[wp-hackers] Editing or extending a child theme

Shasta Willson shastaw at gmail.com
Fri Jan 11 17:52:52 UTC 2013


On Fri, Jan 11, 2013 at 4:30 AM, Bryan Gentry <bryangentry at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I considered the possibility of trying to make a child theme of the child
> theme, but I've read before (in this list) that it is not advisable to
> create child themes of child themes. Is this because it is usually
> overboard to create a child theme of a child theme, or is it because doing
> such will not work?

It's not technically possible. I've had it explained at length why one
should never want to do it, but having been in your position a number
of times, I have a differing opinion.

My approach to explain to the customer the pros and cons.  "I can do X
for you, but you will not be able to safely upgrade your child theme.
Or I could do similar thing Y within the framework and you can upgrade
your theme."  Then if they want to go the custom route, do as Doug
suggested and rename your version of the child theme.

In reality it seems that many vendors don't upgrade child themes much,
perhaps for exactly this reason?  It's worth asking on those forums
whether it's likely to be an issue for that theme.

- Shasta


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