What is a WordPress Child Theme?

WordPress started as a blogging tool, but has grown into a full-fledged content management system for web development. WordPress powers more than 24% of the Internet. Owing to this fact, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of WordPress themes available in the market.

Whenever I start using a WordPress theme, I find myself in a situation where I want to make a few changes to it. But if you make changes in a WordPress theme, then updating it to a new version is one hell of a job. For example, let’s suppose you started using the Twenty Fifteen theme provided by WordPress. You update style.css to change a few things. But then after a few months when theme developers pushed an update for Twenty Fifteen, you’ll be in a position where you could choose to update the theme and lose all your custom styling, or stay out-dated and get hacked, since sometimes theme updates contain security fixes.

Child Themes To The Rescue

This is where concept of Child Themes kick in. Let’s forget about WordPress for a moment. Let’s talk about parents and children. What do you know about children? Being a child, I am bound to get a few characteristics of my parents, but there will also be habits that are pretty unique. Which makes total sense. A child can have some or all traits of their parents with added unique traits of her own.

The concept of Child Themes is based on this fact, and during this entire series I will try to cover all the major aspects of WordPress and Child Themes. So, let’s begin with the first article, which serve as an introduction to child themes. Towards the end of this article, I’ll discuss some of the differences between a parent and a child theme.

Child Themes in WordPress

Normally, all the created WordPress themes are the base themes, or you call them Parent themes. Parent themes bear all the functionality and features which may or may not be inherited by a child theme.

 

Let me explain this concept with a simple example. Imagine that you are a chemist and you are running some experiment. You prepared a solution and you aim to test it further with different types of emulsions. Now, instead of using the entire solution all at once, you divide it into two or three equal parts with each part behaving as a parent. Now if you perform an experiment and it didn’t get the desired results, you will still have a duplicate parent which can be later used for another test. However, if you performed the test on the entire solution, then in case of failure, you may lose the original product (i.e. your parent theme). So, every time you experiment, you have the original parent which has all the features you need. These features can be used as a base while you can add a few unique features in the child which is what a child theme does. Still with me?

The Official Definition

According to the WordPress codex:

A child theme is a theme that inherits the functionality and styling of another theme, called the parent theme. Child themes are the recommended way of modifying an existing theme.

So basically, any theme can behave as a parent theme if it offers the ability of creating a child theme. Now, back to the situation we discussed earlier. If a child inherits features from a parent then what will happen in a case where the parent theme undergoes an update? The answer is simple: only your parent theme will change, while your modifications will stay the same in its Child Theme. So, if you want to keep up with your modifications and still enjoy the latest code base from your theme’s author, all you need to do is create a child theme instead of using the parent theme. We will discuss multiple methods to create a WP child theme in upcoming articles of this series.

Differences between Parent & Child Themes

Now let’s look at some of the differences between parent and child themes.

• A child theme is related only to its parent theme. Which means that in terms of relevance no other theme bears connection with the child theme.


• A child theme is dependent upon the parent theme. To make sure that your child works well, you need to install both the parent & the child theme and then activate the later.


• Parent themes can exist as an independent unit since they are not dependant on any other theme.


• Updates in the parent theme do not affect your modifications in the child theme.

Conclusion

So now you know a little about child themes. In the next post, we will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of using a Child Theme in WordPress. I’d love to hear your thoughts about this series, so leave me a comment below if you have any questions or requests.

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Ahmad Awais is a Full Stack WordPress Developer, WP Core Contributor, Front-end Fanatic and a Designer by night. He loves to create optimized but advanced workflows to produce cool pieces of Open Source software. Follow Ahmad at Twitter or subscribe to his blog.

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What is a WordPress Child Theme?

Cornerstone: The WordPress Page Builder Web Designers Will Love

Editor’s Note: This post is brought to you by theme.co.

"Absolutely Loving It" is just one of the ways in which X Theme users have described their initial impressions of the newly released Version 4.0 that features the new Cornerstone page builder. Web designers who have just recently been introduced to this impressive page builder have been quite vocal in describing this latest enhancement as "awesome", a "masterpiece" and a "game changer".

The authors of this ever-popular theme constantly focus on continual improvement, making some game-changing improvements, including the addition of this new page builder along with several other features in this latest version. The response was far more positive and enthusiastic than anyone expected. Just what is it about Cornerstonen that has created all this excitement about version 4.0?

Cornerstone – Cool, Intuitive, Streamlined

Cornerstone is a collection of shortcodes that can be used to create complex and nearly infinitely customizable page layouts. Despite the complexity of building a layout from scratch, the page builder’s interface creates a more intuitive environment with a streamlined work process to help you deliver your cool results. It is simplicity at its best.

First of all, this is a 100% completely frontend page builder – you can see the changes take effect as you make them. You can essentially editing on the fly, with an over-arching, upclose and personal point-of-view. Your workspace becomes cleaner, more well-organized, clutter-free.

Features Of Cornerstone Page Builder

Cornerstone features an Editor and a Preview area. These two areas work together, but they are viewed separately by the user.

The Editor consists of a sidebar where you can access a Layout pane, an Elements pane, an Inspector (shown below) and a Settings pane that handles a range of miscellaneous options.

The Preview area is where you see where you are at during the page-building activity. It has but a single function, the Inspecting Elements function. If you hover over an element, it will be highlighted in the Editor pane; you can then alter its appearance if you wish.

To get a fuller view of work in progress, the Editor pane is collapsible. Elements displayed in the Preview area can be repositioned on your page via drag-and-drop. You can also edit text on the fly without having to resort to backend manipulations.

Cornerstone has its own Element Library and it is a huge one. The developers refer to it as the Ultimate Element Library, although it can and will always be updated, added to, and improved upon.

If you are a developer who uses coding as a means of increasing a theme’s page-building flexibility, you will love Cornerstone’s Live Code Editing feature. If you are not yet a professional code editor, this Sublime-text-inspired tool can make one out of you.

If you have purchased the X Theme, this intuitive tool will be available to you for free, along with every other premium features this theme has to offer. Gain more control over what you can change, design, envision and create.

Initial Feedback Has Been Positive

A sampling of the testimonials that have been flooding into Themeco’s offices in recent days:

Users are more than pleased. They are excited, and more than a few are simply ecstatic about the features X Version 4.0 and Cornerstone have to offer. When a theme is in many ways nearly as picture-perfect as possible, referring to an update as a game-changer is really saying something, but that is something you can judge for yourself.

Finding a Better Page Builder would be a Challenge

If you have been looking for just the right solution for your page or post building activities, the smooth, streamlined, and intuitive Cornerstone interface has everything you need to build a page in less time that it takes to finish your morning cup of coffee.

You also benefit by having a premium theme with a multiplicity of features to work with, and a best-selling theme. You might even wonder what the next upgrade will feature. And if that wasn’t impressive enough, Cornerstone has a bright future in other parts of the WordPress ecosystem that Themeco will be announcing in the coming months. To sum up, X Theme 4.0 is highly recommended.

Cornerstone: The WordPress Page Builder Web Designers Will Love

Cornerstone: The WordPress Page Builder Web Designers Will Love

Editor’s Note: This post is brought to you by theme.co.

"Absolutely Loving It" is just one of the ways in which X Theme users have described their initial impressions of the newly released Version 4.0 that features the new Cornerstone page builder. Web designers who have just recently been introduced to this impressive page builder have been quite vocal in describing this latest enhancement as "awesome", a "masterpiece" and a "game changer".

The authors of this ever-popular theme constantly focus on continual improvement, making some game-changing improvements, including the addition of this new page builder along with several other features in this latest version. The response was far more positive and enthusiastic than anyone expected. Just what is it about Cornerstonen that has created all this excitement about version 4.0?

Cornerstone – Cool, Intuitive, Streamlined

Cornerstone is a collection of shortcodes that can be used to create complex and nearly infinitely customizable page layouts. Despite the complexity of building a layout from scratch, the page builder’s interface creates a more intuitive environment with a streamlined work process to help you deliver your cool results. It is simplicity at its best.

First of all, this is a 100% completely frontend page builder – you can see the changes take effect as you make them. You can essentially editing on the fly, with an over-arching, upclose and personal point-of-view. Your workspace becomes cleaner, more well-organized, clutter-free.

Features Of Cornerstone Page Builder

Cornerstone features an Editor and a Preview area. These two areas work together, but they are viewed separately by the user.

The Editor consists of a sidebar where you can access a Layout pane, an Elements pane, an Inspector (shown below) and a Settings pane that handles a range of miscellaneous options.

The Preview area is where you see where you are at during the page-building activity. It has but a single function, the Inspecting Elements function. If you hover over an element, it will be highlighted in the Editor pane; you can then alter its appearance if you wish.

To get a fuller view of work in progress, the Editor pane is collapsible. Elements displayed in the Preview area can be repositioned on your page via drag-and-drop. You can also edit text on the fly without having to resort to backend manipulations.

Cornerstone has its own Element Library and it is a huge one. The developers refer to it as the Ultimate Element Library, although it can and will always be updated, added to, and improved upon.

If you are a developer who uses coding as a means of increasing a theme’s page-building flexibility, you will love Cornerstone’s Live Code Editing feature. If you are not yet a professional code editor, this Sublime-text-inspired tool can make one out of you.

If you have purchased the X Theme, this intuitive tool will be available to you for free, along with every other premium features this theme has to offer. Gain more control over what you can change, design, envision and create.

Initial Feedback Has Been Positive

A sampling of the testimonials that have been flooding into Themeco’s offices in recent days:

Users are more than pleased. They are excited, and more than a few are simply ecstatic about the features X Version 4.0 and Cornerstone have to offer. When a theme is in many ways nearly as picture-perfect as possible, referring to an update as a game-changer is really saying something, but that is something you can judge for yourself.

Finding a Better Page Builder would be a Challenge

If you have been looking for just the right solution for your page or post building activities, the smooth, streamlined, and intuitive Cornerstone interface has everything you need to build a page in less time that it takes to finish your morning cup of coffee.

You also benefit by having a premium theme with a multiplicity of features to work with, and a best-selling theme. You might even wonder what the next upgrade will feature. And if that wasn’t impressive enough, Cornerstone has a bright future in other parts of the WordPress ecosystem that Themeco will be announcing in the coming months. To sum up, X Theme 4.0 is highly recommended.

Cornerstone: The WordPress Page Builder Web Designers Will Love

10 WordPress Plugins That Use Artificial Intelligence

In the last year the biggest minds of the globe like Elon Musk, Stephen Hawking and Bill Gates began to publicly worry about artificial intelligence (AI) that is slowly entering our everyday lives. Other tech leaders like Google’s Eric Schmidt claim that AI is not something we need to necessarily be afraid of.

Artificial intelligence makes it possible for a software to learn from experience, and make decisions based on its acquired knowledge. This feature results in an enhanced usability, as the AI algorithm observes the behaviour of individual users and with time adapts to their unique needs.

There are many of these smart WordPress plugins that utilize AI as their core function. As you use them, these plugins learn from your behaviors and decisions, and as a result become smarter and more resourceful. In this post we will be looking at 9 WordPress plugins that use AI to help you.

1. Aimojo

Aimojo is the redesigned version of the authors’ previous plugin called Affinitomics. Aimojo introduces new taxonomies that increase the contextual value of your content. Why would you want to do that? Because it improves search results, makes link lists and menus contextual and dynamic, therefore the usability and the conversion rate will increase on your site.

The taxonomies are self-organizing, and can learn from experience. There are three types:

• Descriptors for neutral relationships (similar to tags)


• Draws for positive relationships


• Distances for negative relationships

The Aimojo team has also developed an additional plugin that helps you convert your existing tags and categories into intelligent taxonomies.

2. MyCurator

MyCurator is a content curation tool that enables bloggers to quickly discover interesting content customized to the needs of their own niche market. MyCurator’s AI relevance engine makes it possible to weed out most of the irrelevant items that you would normally find in RSS feeds or Google Alert notifications. You can also train this plugin by upvoting or downvoting the posts it found.

If you teach it the algorithm, it will find more and more relevant content with time. You can set MyCurator to automatically perform the content curation every day at a specific time, and it also has two handy bookmarklets that enables you to manually save content you found while browsing the Web.

3. Kindred Posts

The Kindred Posts plugin lets you place a widget on your sidebar, recommending relevant content to your visitors. Kindred Posts uses artificial intelligence to gain knowledge about the behaviour of the users and suggests content based on their interests. Your recommendations become more targeted and relevant as more visitors navigate through your site.

You also have the opportunity to integrate the widget with your web analytics tracking code. This way you can easily know which recommendations were clicked on the most. Kindred Posts works out of the box. You can revise the basic options of the plugin under Settings > Kindred Posts in your WP Dashboard, then easily drag and drop the widget to wherever you want on your site.

4. Jetpack

Jetpack dipped its foot into the world of artificial intelligence by integrating the After The Deadline contextual spell checker in 2013. After The Deadline uses artificial intelligence and natural language processing to find writing errors and offer smart suggestions.

The intelligent spell checker can be found in the Spelling and Grammar feature of the Jetpack plugin and it doesn’t only check spelling but also detects misused words, checks styles by using context and thousands of rules, finds cliches and bias-language, and even explain your errors. You can tell the type of the error by its colour. Misused words and spelling errors are marked in red, grammar mistakes in green, and style suggestions in blue.

5. Live Chat + Chatbot

The Live Chat + Chatbot plugin offers a customer support and online chat service which enables you to handle an unlimited number of customers, 24/7 day and night. The intelligent chatbot observes your conversations as you communicate with your customers – and it learns from the experience.

The plugin automatically builds your knowledgebase, and acts on its own by delivering the most relevant answers to the customers. In the background a natural language processing engine connects questions with relevant keywords, and automatically generates your Question & Answers sets. You can switch between live and robot customer service agents with one click.

6. Did You Mean

Did You Mean helps you manage your 404 pages in an intelligent way that makes “Not Found” error pages more user-friendly. Did You Mean works out of the box, it doesn’t have any admin settings.

It offers a conditional sidebar widget that is only displayed on 404 pages, and offers the post that is contextually the closest to the one the user typed in the URL bar. It also makes your search bar more user friendly by offering recommendations to the users while they are typing their search queries.

7. WooCommerce Darwin Pricing Integration

The WooCommerce Darwin Pricing Integration plugin makes it possible to integrate the Darwin Pricing dynamic pricing software into your WooCommerce e-commerce site. Darwin Pricing allows you to run geo-targeted sales campaigns by using real-time competition monitoring, dynamic split testing and artificial intelligence.

At first the software gathers price sensitivity data about your competition, then it utilizes statistical analysis and AI algorithms to find out the optimal discount in every location. The plugin allows you to offer these discounts to your customers as geo-targeted coupons. Darwin Pricing also runs a machine learning engine that gains knowledge about your market and with time it provides you hints towards business development opportunities.

8. Quttera Web Malware Scanner

The Quttera Web Malware Scanner plugin can be a great help if Google backlisted your site. It makes it easy to find out why you got blacklisted. The plugin runs a malware scan for malware, trojans, backdoors, viruses, spywares, code injections, and many other kinds of threats.

Quttera Web Malware Scanner uses cloud technology along with an artificial intelligence scan engine, and returns a detailed investigation report. The investigation engine utilizes a self-learning mechanism that improves the ratio of detected malware. Thanks to this capability Quttera can recognize not only find threats that are already known but also completely new ones.

9. The Client Relations Factory

This plugin integrates WordPress with The Client Relations Factory virtual robot platform. The Client Relations Factory allows you to publish a virtual customer service robot on your site. It doesn’t only provide you with a chatbox but also an animated character that can interact with your customers in an autonomous way.

The virtual robot can provide information to your clients, can identify their needs, can give them support, and therefore engages them in a unique way. You can customize your virtual robot to your needs, and manually update the knowledge it gained during the conversations. Use this plugin if you want to have interesting and fun Contact Us pages and FAQ pages on your site.

Editor’s note: This is written by Anna Monus for Hongkiat.com. Anna is a web developer and code writer with an interest for science, artificial intelligence, and disruptive technologies.

Now Read:
5 Questions to Ask before Installing a WordPress Plugin

10 WordPress Plugins That Use Artificial Intelligence

10 WordPress Plugins That Use Artificial Intelligence

In the last year the biggest minds of the globe like Elon Musk, Stephen Hawking and Bill Gates began to publicly worry about artificial intelligence (AI) that is slowly entering our everyday lives. Other tech leaders like Google’s Eric Schmidt claim that AI is not something we need to necessarily be afraid of.

Artificial intelligence makes it possible for a software to learn from experience, and make decisions based on its acquired knowledge. This feature results in an enhanced usability, as the AI algorithm observes the behaviour of individual users and with time adapts to their unique needs.

There are many of these smart WordPress plugins that utilize AI as their core function. As you use them, these plugins learn from your behaviors and decisions, and as a result become smarter and more resourceful. In this post we will be looking at 9 WordPress plugins that use AI to help you.

1. Aimojo

Aimojo is the redesigned version of the authors’ previous plugin called Affinitomics. Aimojo introduces new taxonomies that increase the contextual value of your content. Why would you want to do that? Because it improves search results, makes link lists and menus contextual and dynamic, therefore the usability and the conversion rate will increase on your site.

The taxonomies are self-organizing, and can learn from experience. There are three types:

• Descriptors for neutral relationships (similar to tags)


• Draws for positive relationships


• Distances for negative relationships

The Aimojo team has also developed an additional plugin that helps you convert your existing tags and categories into intelligent taxonomies.

2. MyCurator

MyCurator is a content curation tool that enables bloggers to quickly discover interesting content customized to the needs of their own niche market. MyCurator’s AI relevance engine makes it possible to weed out most of the irrelevant items that you would normally find in RSS feeds or Google Alert notifications. You can also train this plugin by upvoting or downvoting the posts it found.

If you teach it the algorithm, it will find more and more relevant content with time. You can set MyCurator to automatically perform the content curation every day at a specific time, and it also has two handy bookmarklets that enables you to manually save content you found while browsing the Web.

3. Kindred Posts

The Kindred Posts plugin lets you place a widget on your sidebar, recommending relevant content to your visitors. Kindred Posts uses artificial intelligence to gain knowledge about the behaviour of the users and suggests content based on their interests. Your recommendations become more targeted and relevant as more visitors navigate through your site.

You also have the opportunity to integrate the widget with your web analytics tracking code. This way you can easily know which recommendations were clicked on the most. Kindred Posts works out of the box. You can revise the basic options of the plugin under Settings > Kindred Posts in your WP Dashboard, then easily drag and drop the widget to wherever you want on your site.

4. Jetpack

Jetpack dipped its foot into the world of artificial intelligence by integrating the After The Deadline contextual spell checker in 2013. After The Deadline uses artificial intelligence and natural language processing to find writing errors and offer smart suggestions.

The intelligent spell checker can be found in the Spelling and Grammar feature of the Jetpack plugin and it doesn’t only check spelling but also detects misused words, checks styles by using context and thousands of rules, finds cliches and bias-language, and even explain your errors. You can tell the type of the error by its colour. Misused words and spelling errors are marked in red, grammar mistakes in green, and style suggestions in blue.

5. Live Chat + Chatbot

The Live Chat + Chatbot plugin offers a customer support and online chat service which enables you to handle an unlimited number of customers, 24/7 day and night. The intelligent chatbot observes your conversations as you communicate with your customers – and it learns from the experience.

The plugin automatically builds your knowledgebase, and acts on its own by delivering the most relevant answers to the customers. In the background a natural language processing engine connects questions with relevant keywords, and automatically generates your Question & Answers sets. You can switch between live and robot customer service agents with one click.

6. Did You Mean

Did You Mean helps you manage your 404 pages in an intelligent way that makes “Not Found” error pages more user-friendly. Did You Mean works out of the box, it doesn’t have any admin settings.

It offers a conditional sidebar widget that is only displayed on 404 pages, and offers the post that is contextually the closest to the one the user typed in the URL bar. It also makes your search bar more user friendly by offering recommendations to the users while they are typing their search queries.

7. WooCommerce Darwin Pricing Integration

The WooCommerce Darwin Pricing Integration plugin makes it possible to integrate the Darwin Pricing dynamic pricing software into your WooCommerce e-commerce site. Darwin Pricing allows you to run geo-targeted sales campaigns by using real-time competition monitoring, dynamic split testing and artificial intelligence.

At first the software gathers price sensitivity data about your competition, then it utilizes statistical analysis and AI algorithms to find out the optimal discount in every location. The plugin allows you to offer these discounts to your customers as geo-targeted coupons. Darwin Pricing also runs a machine learning engine that gains knowledge about your market and with time it provides you hints towards business development opportunities.

8. Quttera Web Malware Scanner

The Quttera Web Malware Scanner plugin can be a great help if Google backlisted your site. It makes it easy to find out why you got blacklisted. The plugin runs a malware scan for malware, trojans, backdoors, viruses, spywares, code injections, and many other kinds of threats.

Quttera Web Malware Scanner uses cloud technology along with an artificial intelligence scan engine, and returns a detailed investigation report. The investigation engine utilizes a self-learning mechanism that improves the ratio of detected malware. Thanks to this capability Quttera can recognize not only find threats that are already known but also completely new ones.

9. The Client Relations Factory

This plugin integrates WordPress with The Client Relations Factory virtual robot platform. The Client Relations Factory allows you to publish a virtual customer service robot on your site. It doesn’t only provide you with a chatbox but also an animated character that can interact with your customers in an autonomous way.

The virtual robot can provide information to your clients, can identify their needs, can give them support, and therefore engages them in a unique way. You can customize your virtual robot to your needs, and manually update the knowledge it gained during the conversations. Use this plugin if you want to have interesting and fun Contact Us pages and FAQ pages on your site.

Editor’s note: This is written by Anna Monus for Hongkiat.com. Anna is a web developer and code writer with an interest for science, artificial intelligence, and disruptive technologies.

Now Read:
5 Questions to Ask before Installing a WordPress Plugin

10 WordPress Plugins That Use Artificial Intelligence