WordPress: Building Child Themes

Course details

Learning how to create a child theme is the first step to becoming a WordPress developer. Child themes are a great entry point, as they’re built on top of an existing theme with a properly coded foundation. The skills you use during development are the same ones you leverage for writing brand-new themes and plugins. Learn how to use child themes to create your own custom, stylish new WordPress sites—without the advanced knowledge of a web developer. Instructor Patrick Rauland explains how to get started picking a parent theme, updating the CSS, creating a new template for your child theme, and updating its functionality. By the end of this practical, project-based course, you should have a functioning child theme and the skills to quickly customize your next WordPress site.

Learning objectives
Setting up your development environment and editor
Picking a parent theme
Creating a child theme
Including style sheets
Creating and modifying styles
Modifying functions
Hooking functions
Creating and modifying template files
Adding menus and functionality
Migrating theme files to a live WordPress site

Concepts

0. Introduction

01 - Level up to WordPress developer
02 - What you need to know
03 - Using the exercise files

1. Building on a Solid Foundation

04 - Set up a local development environment
05 - Set up a code editor
06 - Use real content

2. Creating a Child Theme

07 - What is a child theme
08 - Picking a parent theme
09 - Creating and activating a child theme
10 - Including stylesheets
11 - Best practices for including stylesheets

3. Child Themes and CSS

12 - Employing the laziness principle
13 - Designing in the browser
14 - Modify existing styles
15 - Add new styles
16 - Challenge - Add flair
17 - Solution - Add flair

4. Working with Function Files

18 - Understanding functions.php
19 - Finding functions in the parent theme
20 - Modify a pluggable function
21 - Hooks, filters, and action
22 - Filter a function
23 - Hooking functions
24 - Challenge - Change posted by
25 - Solution - Change posted by

5. Working with Template Files

26 - Template hierarchy in WordPress
27 - Changing an existing template
28 - Add new template files
29 - Managing backward compatibility
30 - Challenge - Custom 404 page
31 - Solution - Custom 404 page

6. Add New Functionality

32 - Finding existing functionality
33 - Add a menu
34 - Change menu output with properties
35 - Style new menu with CSS
36 - Challenge - Conditional widgetized area
37 - Solution - Conditional widgetized area

7. Wrapping Up

38 - Shiny new web fonts
39 - Adding a screenshot
40 - Migrating files to your live site

Conclusion

41 - Next steps