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-   -   ATA 3.5.3 Different Behavior In Child Theme from Non-Child Theme (http://forum.bytesforall.com/showthread.php?t=11516)

royhuggins Dec 4, 2010 01:44 AM

ATA 3.5.3 Different Behavior In Child Theme from Non-Child Theme
 
Hi everyone,

My client is running Atahualpa 3.5.3. I need to make changes to the header that require coding at the PHP level so I need to make a child theme. I made a child theme, but some essential behavior changes when the child theme is activated vs. having ATA 3.5.3 activated.

My child theme contains only style.css and no other files. The contents of style.css are:

Code:

/*
Theme Name:    Roy's Theme
Description:    Roy's modifications to Atahualpa for [REDACTED -- Client's site]
Author:        Roy Huggins
Author URI:    [MY WEBSITE URL]
Template:      atahualpa353
Version:        1.0
*/
@import url("../atahualpa353/style.css");

When the child theme is activated, the page menus in the header are not populated with the rMenu class names and IDs. I tracked the program flow to line 12 of bfa_header_config.php. The test "has_nav_menu('menu1')" is FALSE when the child theme is activated and TRUE when ATA 3.5.3 is the active theme.

Is Atahualpa 3.5.3 supposed to support child themes? I.e. is it expected that the child theme breaks or is this a compatibility bug? Is there something else I need to set up in my child theme in order to retain Atahualpa's configuration settings?

Thanks in advance!
-Roy

juggledad Dec 4, 2010 03:47 AM

First off are you sure you have to make changes to the header code and that your change can't be made in the theme options? The majority of changes people want to make can be made using the theme options and there fore they don't need child themes.

So given that, what change are you attempting to make?

royhuggins Dec 4, 2010 10:06 AM

Hi Juggledad,

Thanks for the quick response!

My client wants more text in the header and she wants to be able to edit it (this is separate from the site's tagline and needs more complex formatting.) So I want to be able to use includes. I definitely know that Atahualpa is very customizable. My client has managed to do a ton with it on her own and called me in because she can't accomplish her desired change via the Atahualpa settings, unfortunately. Nothing is perfect. :)

Also in the future I might need other things that require being able to use my own functions.php file. So I'm curious about the status of child theme support in Atahualpa. But maybe the official stance is that Atahualpa is not compatible with child themes? If so, I'll need to break compatibility with future upgrades in order to make the changes my client is looking for. But such is web development life. :)

Thanks so much for your immense time and energy. I really appreciate it!
-Roy

juggledad Dec 4, 2010 11:25 AM

Why not add a widget area to the header and then you can put in a text widget and play to your hearts content?

lmilesw Dec 4, 2010 01:52 PM

To add to Juggledad's idea you could then add the Spectau.la page plugin that will let you add any page to a widget area. Makes for very easy editing.

royhuggins Dec 4, 2010 05:27 PM

Those are excellent suggestions. Thanks, guys. I have a lot of experience with PHP but I'm pretty new to hacking on Wordpress so both of those are useful hints. I was able to execute the changes without a child theme!

I am interested in the child theme bug, however. I'm sure there are things someone might need to do that absolutely require extending Atahualpa. As it stands, making a child theme introduces buggy behavior. If Atahualpa is meant to be stand-alone without support for child themes then I can understand that. I'm just curious if your design goal includes a desire to be child-theme compatible or if I should regard Atahualpa as a highly flexible but not extendable theme.

Thanks again!
-Roy

royhuggins Dec 4, 2010 05:29 PM

Ah, I just realized that I should specify that when I say "extendable" I mean to draw an analogy to OOP, where Atahualpa is like a class and a child theme from Atahualpa would be like a class that extends it. I understand that it presently can be extended using plugins or probably other means I haven't encountered yet. :)

Cheers!

juggledad Dec 4, 2010 07:26 PM

You would have to pose that question to Flynn, who is the developer/owner of the theme
Larry and I are just moderators


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