I have learned & read many documentations on parent/child themes but I have a doubt about managing both themes in one word press website. I have bought a word press theme, both parent & child themes came in the package, I have setup the parent theme as usually and have uploaded the child theme also but not activated it I have activated the parent theme only and imported the dummy data.
It is fine till now but what my doubt is do I have to activate the child theme (Or) parent theme if I want to edit the core .php files & styles of the parent theme. As per the rules if I want to edit any core files or styles I have to edit the child theme only because if I edit parent theme if the theme gets updated in the future then all my changes will be gone. If you have made changes to the theme’s core files, as soon as the update is complete, you’re 100% guaranteed to lose any changes that you’ve made.
How to manage child theme & parent theme? Which theme to activate is it child theme or parent theme only? Thanks.
The purpose of Child theme is to edit/customize anything you want.
I see you have got all idea about child theme except ONE thing. - Copying.
If you have to edit something and it is in parent theme - JUST COPY THAT FILE to child theme and edit it in child theme.
WordPress would read that file from child theme first, if it doesn't exist, then it tries to load it from parent theme.
And one more thing: NEVER edit any file in parent theme - it is useless as you know - updates would erase them.
That's why final rules are simple:
active theme should be child one.
copy a file to child theme in order to change something in it.