Beginners in WordPress Should Start Using Child Themes 2019

Lately, I’ve been told to start using child themes.

Experienced WordPress developers prefer to start a fresh and new website from scratch or use child themes, it all depends on the budget.

Throughout my experience, I have noticed that child themes help in safe updates. It is best to use child theme because there is ease on upgrade and update process too.

Question is: are you making a custom theme with something like sage? Then you won’t need to use a child theme. If you use any theme or page builder theme like DIVI or beaver builder then yes you need to use a child theme or you will never be able to update.

WordPress Beginner 2019

Mostly in work we build from scratch. I’ve built my own starter theme i can work with immediately. If I’m freelancing and the client is strict on a low spend then I’ll use DIVI and knock it out as quick as possible.

Always prefer child theme because if their comes update to main theme, it will not affects your customizations. If you’re building from scratch then there is no update to the theme per say, so no need to use a child theme but, if you are using DIVI then child theme all the way because when updates are released, your child theme doesn’t change, only the parent theme changes. Again it depends how much you customize the theme , if you are not altering the code you are okay.

If you use the child theme, do you change css only?

NO .. You can make changes to the CSS as well as the parent theme files! But if you have an update of the theme, all your changes will be removed? No, that’s why we go for child themes while it comes to customization ! updating the parent theme can’t harm the child theme. So if you wish to add a container for instance in the html, you add an html file in the child folder and not change it in the parent.  Yes , but what we have to edit is the template files (php) . So, the best way to customize a parent theme’s template file is to copy it all and create a same file in the child. Then , customize it.

2019 Child Themes

Rule! For major changes we use child themes if you just wanna change static things then we don’t.  If you’re building your own theme, you don’t need to have a child theme. But if you want to use other theme free or premium and just want to customize it, child theme is the best way to go so all your customization wont get overwritten once you update the parent theme.