Installing Pref. Child Theme manually/error mes

[Gina]

I followed a youtube video to manually create the child theme in the cpanel. I opened and copied the style.css that i downloaded from your site under the Pref Pro tutorial. Also further below is the style.css that I copied exactly. Did not change or alter anything. The template says Preference. Maybe it should say preference Pro?
This is the error message I received in WP themes:

Broken Themes

The following themes are installed but incomplete. Themes must have a stylesheet and a template.
Name Description
Preference Pro Child Theme Stylesheet is missing.
Frisco for BuddyPress The parent theme is missing. Please install the “bp-default” parent theme.
_____________________________
I copied and pasted this exactly:
/*
Theme Name: Preference Child
Theme URI: http://demo.styledthemes.com/preference
Description: Preference Child is created for you to take advantage of making changes to the parent theme of Preference without actually changing its files, you will do your customization from this child theme of Preference Pro.

Template: preference
Version: 1.0
Author: StyledThemes.com
Author URI: http: //www.styledthemes.com/
Tags: light, gray, white, one-column, two-columns, right-sidebar, flexible-width, custom-background, custom-header, custom-menu, custom-colors, editor-style, featured-images, flexible-header, full-width-template, post-formats, sticky-post, theme-options, translation-ready

License: GNU General Public License
License URI: license.txt

Copyright: 2012-2013 Styledthemes.com

This theme, like WordPress, is licensed under the GPL.
Use it to make something cool, have fun, and share what you’ve learned with others.
*/

/* Import Styles
————————————————————– */
@import url(‘../preference/style.css’);

/* Add your Bootstrap.css changes here
————————————————————– */

/* Add your menu.css changes here
————————————————————– */

/* Add your style.css changes here
————————————————————– */

/* mobile styling
————————————————————– */

@media (min-width: 768px) and (max-width: 979px) {

}

@media (min-width: 1200px) {

}

@media (max-width: 979px) {

}

@media (max-width: 767px) {

}

@media (max-width: 480px) {

}

@media (max-width: 320px) {

}

[Sushil Adhikari]

Hi Gina…. there are two separate child themes, one for the Pro version of Preference and the other is for the Free version (Preference lite). You will want to make sure that you have the right one being used but to also make sure that the parent theme is also installed. So if you are using the child theme for the Pro version, then you have to make sure the Pro version of Preference is installed. The child themes I have made for my pro and lite versions are specific and coded to find the parent theme, and recommend following my tutorials, which the child themes have been tested….if you are still running into problems, let me know.

[Gina]

I definitely have preference pro installed and I definitely copied the preference pro child and created a style.css folder in the cpanel with it. You can see above that I used preference child. So I don’t understand why it’s not working.

[Sushil Adhikari]

you shouldn’t have to do what you just did…. with the Preference theme installed, you install the download of my child theme for it, install it just like any other theme, activate the child theme, and then you can begin doing any changes. If you did not do it this way, then I recommend doing that, but again, if you are still running into problems, then please send me a login for your site and I can do this for you 🙂

[Gina]

OK – It’s installed. However – the font has changed, the title is left justified, all the pretty blue separator default lines are gone. The “finesse” is gone.
I’m very close to my max point of aggravation with this. I see the need for the child theme because I did your update yesterday morning and the widgets moved all over the home page and one of the photos reduced to the size of a pin head and the header photo moved back to left justify after I spent so much time trying to figure out how to center it. But if the child theme isn’t going to look as good as the Pro theme that I paid for then the child is useless to me and so is the Pro version for that matter.
In case you’re interested this is how I finally got it installed. To begin- none of the tutorials from anywhere explained that I needed to go into the cpanel to create the child theme. This is a big deal when you know as little about computer tech as I do. They all were saying to create a folder but no one said where to create this folder. I don’t know how many people with my limited tech experience try to create a website on their own but his is how basic it needs to be for me…….anyway
The first time I did the upload through the dashboard etc and got the first error message. The second time I did a copy paste to create the file in the cpanel and got the 2nd error message. The 3rd time I discovered I can “upload” in the cpanel files so I tried that and it worked. Preference child is now installed. However I also got this error message but I don’t know what BuddyPress is or if it’s important.

Broken Themes

The following themes are installed but incomplete. Themes must have a stylesheet and a template.
Name Description
Frisco for BuddyPress The parent theme is missing. Please install the “bp-default” parent theme.

Let me know if I can expect the child theme to look just like the pro theme and how to make that happen.
Thanks,
Gina

[Gina]

I will gladly give you my username and passwords for WP admin and inmotionhosting.com if you think you still need it after reading the post I just sent. Is there a secure way to send them to you?

[Sushil Adhikari]

Hi Gina…. not to worry, we’ll get you setup here.

One important note is that child themes are separate themes which means that if you’ve made changes with the parent theme, such as colours, logo changes, etc. using the option settings of the theme, these are not imported and will need to be redone from the child theme because this is considered a new theme. This is not really a theme based ability (or lack of I should say), but it’s how WordPress works when using Child Themes. Also, child themes are not really meant to do extensive theme changes, but if you had already made substantial changes to the parent theme (the pro one), then your option may be to go back to it and forget using the child theme. If you do this, you might get your settings and changes back, then continue with your customizations directly with the original parent theme instead.

For future updates of the theme, the best way is to review the Changelog.txt file to see what was changed, as I will note which files were changed…therefore, making the decision if you want to update the theme. Some people will sometimes decide to not update if they’ve made more then a few changes. Themes are a foundation and are often built on by the end-user.

Regarding the Frisco for BuddyPress…if you are getting this error of incomplete due to no stylesheet and a template, this is something you will have to contact the developer(s) of that Frisco because this is a third party item.

In a nutshell, you have these options:

1. Go back to using the Pro version of the theme and continue with your site building
2. Use the child theme for parent theme overrides, but note that this does not import your theme options from the PRo version (nor does it for any other theme). This means you will have to redo the option settings again and any changes you have made with the parent theme, you have to copy and paste those into the child theme.

I can easily say that child themes can be confusing for most, but WordPress in itself is not easy when you want to customize code. You may want to consider just sticking to the original pro version and drop the child theme, but always keep backups! When there is an update to the theme, always review the CGANGELOG.txt file to see what was changed before applying the updates to a live theme. That way, you can decide if you want to update or update only the affected files…still, always make notes of what changes you have done (generally speaking).

[Gina]

I just downloaded the pro theme last night so I have made very few changes. When you say changes do you mean to the style.css code or widgets and plugins? I never changed any fonts at any time and those pretty blue lines were defaults not anything I added.
The only style.css change I made was to center the header photo since it wasn’t wide enough to fill the allowed space and there wasn’t a widget space to add text next to the photo so there was all this empty padding.(I recommend centering be added as an option for header photo customization in your next update. 😉 ) Maybe I’ll eventually find some free photos I like that will fit the space.
Anyway I’m going back to the pro version. Maybe this child thing was meant for the amount of changes that a web page designer would be doing. Before any updates I’ll just remember to move the widgets to inactive and also refer back to your last reply and do what you recommended.
If I had the money I would have given up weeks ago and paid someone to do the website for me. But I also like to accomplish things without help and I like a challenge and I like learning new things especially things I thought might be too difficult for me. I will persist. I will send you my site address when I’m done so you can see it. I think it looks pretty good so far. Still have a lot of content to add.
Thanks for your help.
Gina

[Sushil Adhikari]

Changes I mean as in core theme files, including to any theme stylesheets, such as the style.css. But anyway, if you are going back to the pro version, it sounds like that might work out better for you, so the important thing is to do what works for you. Customizing themes or even full websites is not an easy thing to do for many, but for anyone who ventures into customizing as a beginner, it’s a great learning experience. Who knows, maybe soon you will be making themes too 🙂

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