What is a child theme?

Although child themes can be a great way to add custom changes to SmartKit, they are most often used to customize core code taken from the parent theme. Because of this, please be aware that customizations of this nature fall outside our scope of support, and we will be unable to assist you with any issues that may arise. The SmartKit child theme is primarily inserted in the package for developers’ convenience.

A child theme is a theme that has all the functionality and styling of another theme; referred to as the parent theme. Child themes are the recommended way of modifying the code of an existing theme, since a child theme preserves all custom code changes and modifications; even after a theme update. If you modify code directly from a parent theme, and then update the parent theme, your changes will be lost.

Always use a child theme when modifying core code. Child themes can also be used for custom CSS applications, template file modifications, and custom PHP functions and/or hooks. There are two ways to modify a child theme. Bear in mind that using child themes is no guarantee that an update of custom code on the parent theme will not require further maintenance.

To learn more about child themes, follow the link: WordPress Codex on Child Themes

How to install your Child Theme

  1. Log in your account, access your download page and download the package of SmartKit theme.
  2. Unzip the package and locate the file named ksf-smartkit-child.zip.
  3. Access your WordPress admin > Appearance > Themes, upload and activate the ksf-smartkit-child.zip.
Note: you must first install ksf-smartkit.zip file because that is the parent theme. Once that’s done, you can then install the child theme which follows the exact process of installing the parent theme. The Child Theme works on top of the parent theme and you don’t need to update it when you update the parent theme.