Comment on Stallion Responsive WordPress Child Theme by SEO Dave.

Stallion Responsive Child Theme No real difference between updating a parent theme via FTP or the theme updater other than by FTP files are overwrote/replaced rather than deleted and uploaded again. If you have custom files in a parent theme (added your own images for example) uploading via FTP means they won’t be deleted. Since you should be using a child theme for modifications…

I’ve seen WordPress widgets move to the wrong widget area (not disappear completely ) after a theme update when the updated theme has added new widget areas (which is the case with Stallion Responsive 8.2).

It’s a while since I saw this issue and thought it had been fixed in an earlier version of WordPress. If you aren’t running WordPress 4.* could be that bug.

In Stallion 8.2 added new widget areas Left 2 and Right 2 which pushed other widgets down the order. In earlier versions of WordPress found when adding new widget areas the widgets wouldn’t be loaded in the correct widget areas as follows:

Before Update
Widget Area 1 – Category Widget
Widget Area 2 – Empty
Widget Area 3 – Tags Widget
Widget Area 4 – Meta widget

After Theme Update
Widget Area 1 – Category Widget
Widget Area 2 – Empty
New widget Area 2a – Tags Widget
Widget Area 3 – Meta widget
Widget Area 4 – Empty

By adding a new widget area all the widgets below that area have shifted up a level! They are still in an area, but the wrong ones, fix is move them to where they should be.

I tested for this in Stallion Responsive 8.2 in WordPress 4.0 and WordPress 4.1 (themes should be compatible for the last two main versions of WP) and no problems. In the process of updating over 100 domains to WordPress 4.1 and Stallion Responsive 8.2 and so far no issues with widgets moving. Did find a couple of small code typos, hence why there’s a Stallion Responsive 8.2.1 update one day after 8.2 was released.

Hmm, reread what you wrote. If Stallion Responsive 8.1 is already installed you can not update using the upload from computer option, it fails (that’s WordPress core feature, can’t install/update a theme that already exists). The only way you could do this is if you renamed the Stallion Responsive folder either at /wp-content/themes/stallion-responsive-renamed/ or you modified the zip file before updating (not a good idea).

This would be a mess, you shouldn’t rename the parent theme folder, but if you did this it would allow you to ‘update’ via the upload from computer option, though it would be installed as a new theme and all your widgets would be cleared (new theme active doesn’t respect widgets set from other themes).

If you did something like this it will be a mess since Stallion Responsive will be installed twice. What’s the URL?

For updates just go to the WordPress Update page (hoverover Dashboard on left menu click Updates).

David