What are the things that will be affected in case there is some wordpress updates or theme updates?

Question

I amm getting into my head what this child theme is. I have just read it on the internet, and wondering if I do really need to study it or no need.

I don't know any coding and stuffs. I don't have this child theme, its new to me.

Can someone specify what are the things that will be affected in case there are some wordpress updates or theme updates in future?

On my websites, I only change certain things like:

• font color
• font sizes
• font faces
• resizing images
• changing texts
• chaging fonts using theme options that comes with the theme
• wordings, images, contents
• sizes of certain stuff

1) Will my sites be affected when time comes that I need to update?

2) What are the things that will be affected in case there is some wordpress update or theme update?

3) Does that mean, if I make changes to the above listed things, the contents inside style.css will also change?

Answer 1

As long as all modifications have been made in your child theme, updates to WordPress and your parent theme will not effect your modifications.

However, if you have made any changes to the WordPress core files or your parent theme, they will be lost when WordPress and/or your parent theme are updated.

Answer 2

When themes or plugins are updated they are:

1. Deactivated (performing actions, if any, coded to happen in that case)
2. All files are deleted
3. New version of files is copied in
4. Activated (again, possibly running related functionality)

None of their data in database is affected however, unless activation/deactivation events explicitly do something about it.

WordPress core is similar, other than:

• not all files are explicitly replaced if update is done via truncated download with changed files only
• core-specific upgrade routine runs after update, doing things such as updating database, if necessary