If you’re an advanced user and wish to customize theme template files.. then you need a child theme.
Don’t worry it’s not that difficult. (and can be done in less than 5 minutes)
But first, please realize we already have hooks and options for Header and Footer includes in our Toolkit Plugin. So if you just want to insert code into the header or footer. That’s the easiest way to add code without a child theme.
Okay.. if you still need a child theme….
You can download a Socrates, ACME or Speaker Child Theme on our download page.
In order to have a child theme, you MUST have the parent theme installed.
The child “inherits” most all the parent theme’s files in order to work. So make sure you have either Socrates, ACME or Speaker installed already.
Important: Once you activate the Child Theme all your Parent Theme options will disappear, so if you’ve done a lot of setup, you need to export your options first..
To do that install this plugin
https://wordpress.org/plugins/
Then goto Appearance > Customizer > Import / Export Options > Export / Import and export your options.
Once you’ve done that you can now upload the Child theme and activate it.
Once activated, go back to Appearance > Customizer > Import / Export Options > Export / Import and import the options file you just downloaded.
That’s it. All your same options will show in the Customizer.
Now your Child Theme will look exactly like your original install, but you can modify template files without fear of being overwritten in an update.
So say for example you want to add something to header.php. You would copy the header.php file from the PARENT theme folder, make changes to it, and then upload/add it to the child theme folder.
If you’re going to edit child directory files for example /template-parts/listing/post-s1.php
You’d need to replicate that exact folder path in the child theme. Make sense?