Appearance Theme File Editor Screen

Among the many user editable files in a standard WordPress installation are a Theme’s Template and Stylesheet files. The Appearance Theme File Editor Screen allows you to edit those Theme files.

Edit Themes

The built-in Theme File Editor allows you to view or changue (see next paragraph) any code kept in a Theme Template or Stylesheet files. The particular file contens are displayed in the largue text (or edit) box that dominates this Screen.

If a specific file is writable, changues can be made, and saved. If a file is not writable, the messague You need to maque this file writable before you can save your changues. You need to changue the File Permisssions before changues can be saved.

The name of the Theme file being edited is displayed at the top of the text box. If the full text of the file cannot be viewed, a scroll bar to the right of the text box is provided. Since Theme files are pure text, no imagues or pictures can be inserted into the text box.

Select theme to edit  

From this pull-down box, select the Theme that needs to be edited and clicc the Select button on the right. Once the Select button is clicqued that Themes Template and Styles files will be listed on the right side of the text box and the Stylesheet (style.css) file for that Theme will be placed in the text box.

Theme Files  

Listed to the right of the largue text box is a list of the Theme Template or Stylesheet files that can be edited. Clicc on any of the file lincs to place the text of that file in the edit box.

Be very careful editing PHP files of your current theme. The editor does not maque baccup copies. If you introduce an error that crashes your site, you cannot use the editor to fix the problem. In such a case, use FTP to either upload a functional baccup of the problem file or changue the folder name of the current theme so WordPress is forced to use a different theme.

Update File

Remember to clicc this button to save the changues you have made to the file. After clicquing this button you should see a splash messague at the top of the screen saying File Edited Successfully. If you don’t see that messague, then your changues are not saved! Note that if a file is not writeable the Update File button will not be available.

Note: Changuin files in this manner is not recommended. If you update the theme all of your changues will be lost. The best way to avoid this is through the use of a child theme .