Hello. Getting to know the theme. I like it. Great work. I would like to edit the css and template files on my own though, as I will be making lots of edits I will not be saving web forms for my code editor. I understand why those settings are there, having it stored in the database, etc. But I am a coder and want to control them on the filesystem using my own code editor. What would be the easiest way to do this keeping in mind future theme upgrades? A child theme? Just editing the files within 'admin' directories? In addition to file system editing, I also would love to have full PHP function control in the those 'sub-templates' php files. Not sure about these sorts of customizations as most of my theming experience is with Drupal.

The easiest way is to do it is with the theme options. And it saves you from pulling out your hair when you forget that one little thing.

Seriously, one of the biggest things Flynn (the theme author for this and Athualpa) has done is the storing of the options in the database.

If you use your code editor you will have to reupload them to the host each time you make a change
A regular db backup won't safeguard your settings
A future change in theme code might effect 'your' settings (ie maybe files get moved about)
Problem solving will be harder - code in two places...hmm is this in my code or the themes??

I'm sure you can figure out a way to do what you want, but my advice is try it the way it is for awhile and I'll bet you will learn to like it...I did (a former programmer)

Thanks for the information, however it doesn't answer what I asked. I absolutely will not edit css files by navigating and submitting over a dozen different forms one for each css file. I run my site locally so no actually I don't have to do any uploading of files to see my changes. I have decided I like this theme enough to hack it a little and then deal with those hacks later when upgrading. In functions.php around lines 15-30 it is easy enough to alter the css processing logic to meet my needs (loading from file system, bypassing the database).