One of the parts of Using WordPress that I’ve been spending a lot of time learning the whole WordPress theming area. Theme frameworks, Parent-child themes, CSS, PHP, Menus, Custom Post Types and Custom Taxonomies all interesting parts of WordPress 3.0 that I’ve been delving into and making some headway with. Last night, while working on said chapter on themes, I decided to switch to the new default theme for WordPress 3.0 Twenty Ten—Trying Twenty Ten for a Time—then I got the idea that maybe I should try my hand at making a child theme for Twenty Ten. That’s the goal with Twenty Ten, really, that child themes will be built from it—New Theme: Twenty Ten—not to hack at it like was often done with Kubrick.
First off I used this Parent-Child theming guide by Ian Stewart—WordPress Child Theme Basics—then I decided that all I wanted to do (for now) was to use the new Google Webfonts—Google Font Directory—instead of the “normal” fonts.
It didn’t make more than a couple minutes to create the one, and only, file needed for the child theme: style.css. Then I just added the code to import all the two Google fonts I wanted (Cantarell and Droid Sans Mono) and put in the code to change the fonts. One quick screenshot and Twenty Ten dot Five was born! If you’d like use this theme, first you need to have Twenty Ten installed as an available theme and running the latest beta of WordPress 3.0—WordPress 3.0, Beta 2—then you can download this wee zip file and install Twenty Ten dot Five (the dot Five is because it’s May) like a regular theme and activate it—Twenty Ten dot Five.
No, this theme isn’t fancy or doing any more than changing the fonts. I didn’t intend it to be. This is an example of how easy it is to make a child theme.
If you want to learn more about WordPress 3.0 before my book comes out you can join Catherine Winters and I at WordCamp Vancouver where we’ll be talking about WordPress 3.0 (and themes).
Hello Tris,
It seems like with the lack of action hooks baked into twenty-ten, creating highly customized child themes may be difficult. Am I missing something.?
Hi Steve, I’m not sure about that. I think Twenty Ten is still in development, so there might be more hooks. Also, I think you can make a pretty decent custom theme starting from Twenty Ten. Granted, all I did was scratch the surface here.
Excellent – I’d missed the announcement that you two were confirmed for WordCamp. Looking forward to hearing your talk.
No pressure or anything
Thanks Jon. I don’t know how much Catherine and I will get into in 30 mins, but I’ll be at the genius bar as well.
I know… 30 min conference settings are tough… there’s barely time to get everybody up to speed on basics before you’re over.
For me personally, I know about the parent-child concept and I like the idea but I know zero about how to implement it so anything you say will be useful
You can get a jump start with Twenty Ten dot Five…it’s a pretty simple and basic child theme.
I’ll also be at the genius bar, if anyone’s interested–I put down that WP3.0 and child themes were my specialty, so there.
I still think you’re the Goddess of WP 3 and child themes in my book.
This is just an aesthetic thing, but your post heading font is choppy, and I find there’s too much wasted space at the top of your page (especially on a wide screen).
Yeah, this is still a work in progress. Experimenting with different ways of using the header space.
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I want to know whenever your book comes out! Thx for this child theme i will take a look and try to make my child theme!