How to preserve settings when theme is updated and child exists?

roydeanjr

I just updated to 2.6 of orange theme and could not simply update the child theme. I tried to delete the theme and not the data, but the newly created child did not adopt the old child’s settings.

What is the proper method of updating a child theme when the parent is updated? Or is it just not possible?

wakey18

I would also like to know this…
When there is an update to the theme it is a pain in the a$$ to then have to manually update the child theme so it works with the newly added features.

sampoyigi

You could use a file compare tool to check for changes from the updated the parent theme and apply them.

roydeanjr

Can github do that as well? But, what are the differences between a parent theme and a child theme? Shouldn’t all the user accessible options be stored in either the database or a file and all the changes to a parent would be only the code and not the options? I just want the new “updated” version of the theme to use the options I have already set. The problem with the current theming system is that the parent or original Orange theme is not updatable. We often receive the message that “this theme is locked and cannot be saved”. Therefore we create a child theme that is not updated when the parent is updated. There has to be another solution than running a file compare tool and apply the changes manually.

sampoyigi

roydeanjr I just want the new “updated” version of the theme to use the options I have already set.

I was referring to updating the child theme files with changes from the parent and not the child theme options as those are stored in the database and should remain untouched after updating.

roydeanjr

sampoyigi Yes, that is true, however in order to update the child theme with the new code in the parent theme, a manual process like that should not be the requirement. If the modifications are to the code in the parent anyway, it should be easy enough to copy those to the child via a similar process used to create the child in the first place.

I tried to update the child by customizing the parent and choosing the create child theme. I got the message that a child already exists and it did not create a new child nor update the existing child.

I then deleted the child and kept the data, created a new child and the record still remained showing the original child and the new child as well. But in the new child, none of my previous settings were reflected.

breaksecurity

Any news on this?

sampoyigi

Lost track on this one! Can you create an issue here https://github.com/tastyigniter/TastyIgniter/issues/new

breaksecurity

@roydeanjr Can you maybe open it?

roydeanjr

breaksecurity Done!

sampoyigi

Just experienced a similar issue, lost the child theme styles after updating.

How I got around it was to copy the _meta/assets.json file from the parent theme into the child theme then changed the values of the style & script items and the destination item on the bundles to use the child theme path. This way when you make changes through the theme customizer your changes are stored inside the child theme.

  "style": [
    {
      "path": "CHANGE_TO_YOUR_CHILD_THEME/assets/css/app.css",
      "name": "app-css"
    }
  ],
  "script": [
    {
      "path": "CHANGE_TO_YOUR_CHILD_THEME/assets/js/app.js",
      "name": "app-js"
    }
  ],
  "bundles": [
    {
      ...
      "destination": "~/themes/CHANGE_TO_YOUR_CHILD_THEME/assets/css/app.css"
    },
    {
     ...
      "destination": "~/themes/CHANGE_TO_YOUR_CHILD_THEME/assets/js/app.js"
    }
  ]

Create two empty directories within your child theme; assets/js & assets/css