[SOLVED] Should I use a Child Theme or build a Parent Theme?

[Alberto Burrito]

I'm working on a prestashop site, my mockup has a few things, such as an irregular shaped menu, that I feel might be a difficult to recreate in a child theme.

Particularly I'd like to know seeing my mockup example, which would be the best route to take.

I'm pretty sure it'd be not that hard to do it with a custom Parent theme, but I've not yet built a parent theme before and I'm on a tight deadline, so that might be a bit of a crazy idea to go with, but on the other hand I'm not sure how I'd go about it with a child theme. Any ideas?

Thank you!

Edited December 5, 2018 by Alberto Burrito (see edit history)

[JBW]

In my opion a child theme is used in case you would like to change/add minor things in a existing theme but still be able to upgrade the parent theme without loosing/reimplemeting all changes from scratch. As your mock-up seems to be a complete new individual design I would go for a own theme but taking e.g. the classic theme and structures, copy and adjusting them to your needs.

[Alberto Burrito]

1 hour ago, JBW said:

In my opion a child theme is used in case you would like to change/add minor things in a existing theme but still be able to upgrade the parent theme without loosing/reimplemeting all changes from scratch. As your mock-up seems to be a complete new individual design I would go for a own theme but taking e.g. the classic theme and structures, copy and adjusting them to your needs.

That's what I thought, but I remembered I can use Pseudo elements on the child theme to probably do that design. I might just go for that since I'm on a short deadline. Thanks for the reply though!

[JBW]

Not sure what you mean with "Pseudo elements"? For sure you can only adjust CSS and few tpl files on the child theme and infuence size, positions, colors etc. to "design" you own theme in this way. But you will be limited in case you want to change major things. I think it's worth a try

[Alberto Burrito]

Yeah, I thought adjusting tpl files from a child theme would be more of a hassle, but it was totally worth going down the child theme route. I think the best answer for my initial question is it depends on how big the changes are and how much time is at your disposal, the changes have to be REALLY big for you to need a custom parent theme, and if you have a deadline coming up it's probably best to stick to using a child-theme.