Theme upgrades on localhost

I’m new to WordPress and I don’t want to mess up. I would like to know what’s the safe way to update the Basel theme (At the moment I want to do this update on my localhost since the website is not yet online). I downloaded the latest zip file from Envato and uploaded it through Appearance > Themes > Add new > Upload Theme. I go to the Live Preview of this 1.6.2. version and I’m discouraged to see that most of the improvements I had made would not show any more. I’m sure that there is a way to keep them but when I search online to find a solution I only get a lot of useless advice on how to do this once the website is live, through a child theme, doing a backup before that…

Are there big differences between upgrading the theme on localhost and doing this on a live website? How is this done on localhost? (that’s what I’m interested at the moment)

Thanks!!!!

Hi,

First of all you must do all your changes using child theme because it is obvious that all your changes will be lost after replacing all theme files.

And there is no any difference between updating theme on localhost and live server. Just do this in the same way.

Hi again,

Creating the child theme manually is just way too complicated for me since I don’t have the required background. I could think otherwise if you gave me the right resources to be able to do it without breaking everything up.

Doing a bit of search has brought me to the Child Theme Configurator plugin though, which could hopefully save me a lot of headaches. Having said that, when I download this plugin and try to create the child theme I get this message:

https://s32.postimg.org/q6w40h75x/contact_theme_developer.png

The lines are these:

– Strict Standards: Redefining already defined constructor for class googlefonts in /Applications/MAMP/htdocs/wp-basel/wp-content/plugins/wp-google-fonts/google-fonts.php on line 140

– Warning: call_user_func_array() expects parameter 1 to be a valid callback, array must have exactly two members in /Applications/MAMP/htdocs/wp-basel/wp-includes/plugin.php on line 235

– Warning: Cannot modify header information – headers already sent by (output started at /Applications/MAMP/htdocs/wp-basel/wp-content/plugins/wp-google-fonts/google-fonts.php:140) in /Applications/MAMP/htdocs/wp-basel/wp-includes/pluggable.php on line 1167

Could you tell me what’s disallowing the plugin to work properly?

Thank you very much in advance.

It is not necessary to generate a new child theme. Just open full package downloaded from themeforest and child theme zip file is already there. Just upload it and install as a new theme.

Hello again,

It is true that I haven’t made big changes as to need to create a child theme, specially because there are theme custom CSS and Custom JS files, BUT I have updated the theme and my menus have been disconfigured (not deleted) and my footer is completely gone. The four different footer columns that I had set up with widgets in them are no longer there. AND all the widgets included within the Blog Sidebar were deleted as well. The menus came back again as soon as I went to Menus in Appearance and gave them again the language they belong to. However, the footer info I had to do manually from scratch.

https://s32.postimg.org/z8ry7l4z9/top_theme.png
https://s32.postimg.org/qrsfw7pv9/top_child_theme.png
https://s32.postimg.org/lv7kgihxh/bottom_theme.png
https://s32.postimg.org/caplut7xx/bottom_child_theme.png

On the one hand, I have been able to set all up as it was (after 1 hour of redoing the work) since I had the older version still available. On the other, you may agree with me that this is not desired behavior. I don’t think it’s as easy as ‘uploading it and installing it as a new theme’. I really want to know if there’s a solution to this because otherwise making changes for every new update will be incredibly time-consuming (now on localhost is already painful but when the site goes live will be worse).

Hello,

The problem is that when you activating some other theme in WordPress widget and menus configuration may be lost. And now you need to add your widgets in Appearance -> Widgets for your child theme again. Them you will always use this child theme and widgets will never disappear after parent theme update.

I’m sorry, but I don’t understand the answer. So do I need a child theme for this now? (in this case for all files? how is this done?) Could you please explain yourself a bit further? I’m a WordPress beginner.

So here are basic points about child theme usage with our theme

1) If you need to customize any theme files or add a lot of CSS changes to your web-site you need to use child theme.

2) Here is the link that demonstrate how it works https://codex.wordpress.org/Child_Themes

3) You don’t need to create child theme from scratch because we already made it for you (you have found in in theme package downloaded from themeforest)

4) When you install child theme and activate it all widgets and menus configuration will be lost. It is not our theme bug, it is default WordPress behavior.

5) So after activating child theme you need to add your widgets to all widgetised areas in Appearance -> Widgets again.

6) When you are done with child theme set up, you can freely update PARENT theme without loosing any configurations or changes made in child theme files.

I don’t understand why things like my CUSTOMIZED Revolution slider, Blog, Products, or even third-party plugins like Mailchimp or Live Chat are not affected with new theme updates (they remain exactly the same), but when it comes to the menus or the footer widgets they do get affected.

Anyway, I guess from your answer then that I DO NEED to use a child theme if I don’t want to be changing all the time my menus and footer. But in my case what files are the relevant ones that I need to incorporate inside my child theme? Which files contain the widgets that I include on the footer or the menu changes?? Those are definitely not in .css files. Maybe on a functions file? Can I do a child theme with only one file and no .css files at all? You may feel that I’m too picky and that I ask a lot but knowing how to solve this is very important to me and sending me to the https://codex.wordpress.org/Child_Themes page is not of much help to me since I’m a beginner… Is it that difficult to give me a step-by-step explanation? Aren’t there any good tutorials out there that can help me with these?

1) As we already said it is depends on WordPress functionality. And only menu and widgets may be lost after activating another theme.

2) There are no any files containing widgets, all configutaions is saved in Appearance -> Widgets in the dashboard.

3) What exactly step by step instruction do you need? How to set up child theme? Here is is:

1. Find child theme in the zip file downloaded from themeforest.

2. Upload it via your wordpress dashboard in Appearance -> Themes.

3. Activate child theme.

Thats all 🙂

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