Themes—Child Themes

Question

I apologize if this is a very basic question, but I am very new to working with Wordpress.

I'm looking into using Wordpress as a CMS for a new site I'm building but I'm not sure I understand some of the best practices for themes. I've heard that a good approach is to use pre-existing themes and modify them to your own purposes using a child theme.

Is this the direction in which I should look? Is there another approach that I should look in to?

Thanks for your help!

Answer 1

If you don't want to develop/maintain your own Theme, then yes: choose an existing Theme, and make modifications to it via Child Theme.

If, on the other hand, you are comfortable with developing/maintaining your own Theme, then either create a new Theme, or make a derivative of an existing Theme.

Since, as you state, you are very new to WordPress, I would highly recommend using the Child-Theme approach.

Answer 2

When theme is updated via native WP mechanisms it is completely overwritten. Child theme separates your modifications so they are not affected by that.

So there are several basic cases:

1. Themes that are never getting updated. It doesn't matter if you use child theme if you don't have to deal with updates. But in such case you will need to maintain that theme as well as your own modifications.

2. Themes that are updated and hosted in official repository. It is best to use child theme for such.

3. Themes that are updated but are not hosted in official repository. This is case by case. Some themes are supposed to be updated manually and will benefit from child theme. Some have their own mechanisms for modifications that are not affected by update and essentially replace child theme.