Plugin: Child Theme Creation

Child Theme Configurator is the only one that supports copying configuration options.

Please note that the new recommended method of inheriting style.css is by using wp_enqueue_style in functions.php, so style.css is only for information about the theme.

Theme customizations are stored in wp_options.

Possible ways to modify page output

Override files

We can override any PHP file or template. If theme creator was using get_stylesheet_directory function, everything will be ok as this function returns the directory of a child theme.

But if author was using get_template_directory, then we also need to modify parent files from whom these PHP files are included. So, very soon this becomes a nightmare of small changes in a lot of files. And, every one of these files must be checked for changes after theme update - real nightmare.

Note that function get_template_directory gets parent’s directory.

Changing output on-the-fly

Using filter hooks works but only for content from Wordpress.

To modify theme output, we need a classic output buffering. Maybe, just maybe, theme can expose some kind of filtering of its output. But, that’s a small chance.

Simplest and best way to achieve output buffering replacement is is by using plugin called: Real-Time Find and Replace.