wordpress: the importance of a child theme

official documentation for child theme:

Child Themes

its critical to make a child theme, because if you don't do it every change you make will be overwritten every time you update your theme.

it is very easy to create:

• you need to identify the name of your theme.
  • go to your themes folder (/var/www/html/[YOUR DOMAIN FOLDER]/wp-content/themes/[THEME_NAME]
  • on your desktop create a folder structure with the following files:
    • top folder: [THEME_NAME]-child
      • for example if your theme name is "sydney" you create the folder with the name "sydney-child"
    • files inside the folder:
      • functions.php
        • include the following text inside this file

          • <?php
            add_action( 'wp_enqueue_scripts', 'enqueue_parent_styles' );
            function enqueue_parent_styles() {
            wp_enqueue_style( 'parent-style', get_template_directory_uri().'/style.css' );
            }
            ?>

      • style.css
        • include the following text inside this file:

          • /*
            Theme Name: My Custom dt-the7 theme
            Template: dt-the7
            */

    • then zip this folder on your desktop (I use 7zip, but you can use the zip program of your choice)
    • then go to your WordPress admin dashboard -> Appearance -> Themes -> Add New -> upload the theme you just created and zipped -> activate the uploaded theme
    • from this moment on, you should be able to add the functions and edit your custom css to these 2 new files and they should be upgrade safe.

as always, make sure to make a backup of both your file system and your database prior to doing this, so in case something goes wrong you can restore.