I have a completed site and would like to update to the newest version of Salient. Unfortunately, I only now learned that it may overwrite some of my modifications unless I have created a child theme, which I have not. I have researched on the web and in the Theme Nectar info base, and it is still unclear to me just what kind of alterations may be overwritten and what is the process to create a child theme on a finished site.
I have added a fair amount of custom CSS code on the Salinent General Settings tab and on some pages in the appropriate windows. Are these or other basic configurations vulnerable? Or is it only more custom alterations of non "front end" code (which I have not done) which one needs to worry about?
In any event, I would like to install a child theme before updating. Do you have instructions for doing this when one has already created a finished site?
My current understanding is that I need to copy the Child Theme that comes with the salient version I am currently using into the themes directory. Then I need to copy over some files from the now active main theme (or perhaps just some of the contents of these files). After this I need to activate the child theme and then I would update the main theme. Is this correct?
The custom CSS, pages and theme options should be safe after update. Those are stored separately from the theme files.
When doing an update you are essentially just replacing theme files (like the header.php and functions.php).
So if you had made changes to those files on your server they will definitely be lost on update and that's why you need a child theme. The child theme files can be included to overwrite the parent theme files so you can add an additional functionality to the header, footer, blog and etc.
It is always recommended to have a backup of your site though, child theme or not it is good practice to have your site backed up especially before doing updates. There are plugins out there that do this.
The standard child theme usually only consists of 3 or 4 files you'll have to insert your changed files in there otherwise. I have attached a copy of one for Salient below you are free to install and activate it, it doesn't matter if you already made changes to the parent, just to include the changes there now.
After doing that you are free to update have a look here for help with that.
Let me know if there's anything else I can assist you with.
Tahir,
I have a completed site and would like to update to the newest version of Salient. Unfortunately, I only now learned that it may overwrite some of my modifications unless I have created a child theme, which I have not. I have researched on the web and in the Theme Nectar info base, and it is still unclear to me just what kind of alterations may be overwritten and what is the process to create a child theme on a finished site.
I have added a fair amount of custom CSS code on the Salinent General Settings tab and on some pages in the appropriate windows. Are these or other basic configurations vulnerable? Or is it only more custom alterations of non "front end" code (which I have not done) which one needs to worry about?
In any event, I would like to install a child theme before updating. Do you have instructions for doing this when one has already created a finished site?
My current understanding is that I need to copy the Child Theme that comes with the salient version I am currently using into the themes directory. Then I need to copy over some files from the now active main theme (or perhaps just some of the contents of these files). After this I need to activate the child theme and then I would update the main theme. Is this correct?
Thank you for your time and help.
Andrew
Hi Andrew,
Thanks for reaching out to us.
The custom CSS, pages and theme options should be safe after update. Those are stored separately from the theme files.
When doing an update you are essentially just replacing theme files (like the header.php and functions.php).
So if you had made changes to those files on your server they will definitely be lost on update and that's why you need a child theme. The child theme files can be included to overwrite the parent theme files so you can add an additional functionality to the header, footer, blog and etc.
It is always recommended to have a backup of your site though, child theme or not it is good practice to have your site backed up especially before doing updates. There are plugins out there that do this.
The standard child theme usually only consists of 3 or 4 files you'll have to insert your changed files in there otherwise. I have attached a copy of one for Salient below you are free to install and activate it, it doesn't matter if you already made changes to the parent, just to include the changes there now.
After doing that you are free to update have a look here for help with that.
Let me know if there's anything else I can assist you with.
Cheers