Comment on SEO Silo Theme by SEO Dave.

SEO Silo Structure Stallion Responsive in demo mode resets the main data roughly ever 500 pageviews with a random element which means could be 1 pageview or thousands (will average at 500).

The settings reset are those set under the following Stallion Theme options pages:

Stallion Theme
Child Theme Options
AdSense Ad Options
Chitika Ad Options
In-Text Ad Options
Layout Options
Colour Options
Promotion Options
Language Options
Performance Options
SEO Advanced Options

Additional options like the Widgets Anywhere options, options added to widgets including the display widgets feature, any SEO data added directly to the Post edit screens (the keyword phrases) remain intact. So only the main options pages reset

This gives users the ability to test Stallion without being able to run a site long term in demo mode easily: you could, but would be a lot of effort having to enter the main options at random intervals and going to mess with Google rankings overtime.

You are correct on how to use the Stallion child theme. Don’t edit anything under /stallion-responsive/ only make edits to /stallion-responsive-child/.

I created my own child theme feature that’s not part of WordPress core which takes child themes to a new level. With WordPress core child theme functionality the main theme template files like header.php, single.php, page.php etc… can be overridden simply by copying the file into the child theme folder.

If you wanted to change single.php for example you would take a copy of

/stallion-responsive/single.php

and paste it into

/stallion-responsive-child/single.php

And WordPress would ignore /stallion-responsive/single.php (like you deleted it) and use /stallion-responsive-child/single.php, so any edits to /stallion-responsive-child/single.php are what you see on the webpage.

Want to change back to the default single.php file delete/rename the /stallion-responsive-child/single.php file and wordPress will again use the original file.

It’s a really useful feature WordPress added, that’s basic WordPress child theme functionality you get with any theme.

Problem is WordPress core doesn’t offer this ability for all files within a parent theme folder, basically if it’s not a registers template file (header.php, single.php, page.php etc…) this doesn’t work, must be a registered PHP template file.

I extended this to almost all files under /stallion-responsive/ including css files under /stallion-responsive/colors/ and image files under /stallion-responsive/header/ and /stallion-responsive/thumbnails/ (this is where headers and thumbnails are).

There are a small number of files it doesn’t work with like the main options pages, but the rest it’s make a copy into the child theme and edit away. To achieve the same with an average WordPress theme requires understanding what a file does, filter out and replace it’s functions (really complicated)!!!

When making theme updates it’s a case of because you’ve not touched anything under /stallion-responsive/ it can be auto updated. The child theme when I make an update should be manually updated using FTP.

I can’t say the next Stallion update will work with whatever modifications a user makes to Stallion php files that’s been copied to the child theme. Things change between updates, so if you make major modifications via the child theme and the next update breaks the site could be something important was added to a file that’s been modified. I would go into the child theme folder and rename the files I’ve changed one by one (add a 0- to the file so single.php becomes 0-single.php sort of thing) and see if that’s the file causing the problem. When you find the file(s) make the modifications again to the new single.php file.

In the latest 8.1 update made minor changes to the child theme, latest copy of timthumb.php and copied over the mobile.png image file for all the colour schemes. For those who made no changes to the child theme simple case of FTP the entire /stallion-responsive-child/ over the current folder. For those who have made child theme customization it would be upload:

/stallion-responsive-child/timthumb.php
/stallion-responsive-child/style.css (just so it says version 8.1, not really NEEDED)

Entire folder:

/stallion-responsive-child/colors/images/

Assuming the user hasn’t added their own mobile.png files to the colour schemes. All default colour schemes have a mobile.png file, I added a copy of the mobile.png files for all the colour schemes to take into account a feature improvement (for making new colour schemes), but even here the images being copied to the child theme are only needed if the users makes their own colour schemes.

These files either weren’t changed or just minor text changes to the info to better describe features.

functions-child.php
functionsplus-child.php
st_responsive_child.php

Did change screenshot.png which is just the image you see for the theme under “Appearance” >> “Themes”, so not needed.

None of the thumbnails or header images were changed, no new features added etc… so Stallion Responsive 8.1 works fine with the Stallion Responsive 8.0 child theme (update not required).

The only file that was actually updated was /stallion-responsive-child/timthumb.php and even that’s not needed. The developers of Timthumb (it’s for creating small thumbnails) found a security flaw in their code, but I’ve already disabled the feature in the timthumb.php file for Stallion Responsive 8.0 because I didn’t want the ability to make thumbnails from images on other domains due to potential security issues, so the security flaw never had an impact on Stallion.

If I make a major change to the child theme I’ll let users know to definitely update it. I’ve deliberately kept the child theme simple so it doesn’t need my updates, so users can keep running without using FTP to make updates.

David