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WordPress

Gabriel Ward
Gabriel Ward
20,222 Points
Posted by Gabriel Ward
Gabriel Ward
20,222 Points

FTP and child theme

I'm wanting to learn how to edit WP themes by creating and editing child themes.

I've successfully made a child theme by creating relevant style.css and functions.php files in a folder and saving them on my desktop. Then I zipped them up and uploaded them to my wordpress account. I changed the background color to check whether it was all working and it was. I viewed this on my local server which i'm running through MAMP.

So my question is:

do I need to use FTP?

If I do need to use FTP, do I need to have a domain name and a webhost? I've downloaded cyber duck but don't have a webhost or domain name.

I can't get anything to work in cyber duck at this point.

Thanks for any help provided.

1 Answer

Rich Bagley
Rich Bagley
25,869 Points
Rich Bagley
Rich Bagley
25,869 Points

Hi Gabriel,

If you want to create themes on a hosted server, or for your own website for example, you will need a domain, hosting and FTP to access it.

You can achieve this locally through MAMP as you were doing though if you're just experimenting and you don't need FTP for that.

If you aren't already working through it I'd recommend the WordPress Development track, specifically How to Make a Website with WordPress as Zac briefly goes over hosting, etc in the first video.

If you aren't too familiar with WordPress in general I'd recommend the Learn WordPress track first though.

Hope that helps.

-Rich

Gabriel Ward
Gabriel Ward
20,222 Points
Gabriel Ward
Gabriel Ward
20,222 Points

Ok so for just playing around with theme layout/design, and looking at it on my local sever I don't to get all the FTP related stuff?

Gabriel Ward
Gabriel Ward
20,222 Points
Gabriel Ward
Gabriel Ward
20,222 Points

The editing a changing of the theme will be just as easy? The FTP stuff doesn't make it any easier?

Rich Bagley
Rich Bagley
25,869 Points

Hi Gabriel,

FTP is File Transfer Protocol and is used to transfer your files to your server. If you're working locally it won't be needed.

The Website Basics course has a section on FTP which you may find useful.

There is also a Local WordPress Development course within the WordPress Development track.

Hope that helps.

-Rich