CSS Modifications Being Stomped On

[Rick]

I have hired a programmer to modify some simple CSS things and each time we do a theme (Avada) or WordPress update, the modifications disappear – even using a child theme.

The three mods are:

1) Removed the blue bar over the featured image on both the events list page and the single event page.

2) Added the event title to the body text of the individual event page.

3) Moved the ticket purchase code from the right side bar to the top of the body text on the individual event page.

Any advice?

Thanks!

Rick…

[George]

Hey Rick,

Thanks for reaching out!

We unfortunately cannot help with code customizations, so the programmer will still have to make the specific modifications for the most part.

But when it comes to the CSS being overwritten each time, this is something I can definitely try to help with.

Where, specifically, does the programmer put his or her modifications each time? What is the full path of the CSS file where the CSS modifications are placed, and what are the paths of the PHP files where various PHP modifications are made?

Thank you!
George

[Rick]

Hi George,

Yeah, I knew you couldn’t help with custom CSS. I guess I was asking your recommendation on WHERE to place the CSS so that it wouldn’t be affected with any updates to the theme, WP or the Events Calendar plugin itself. I was thinking the functions.php in the child theme would be the best place to put it, but wanted your input.

[George]

Hey Rick,

Thanks for elaborating on your question a bit, and for your patience with my delayed response. I had an urgent and unexpected outage this week and was not able to respond yesterday. My apologies!

In regards to your question, the only really solid way to go about making CSS customizations on your site in a way that absolutely will not be overwritten by theme updates is to put these CSS customizations into a custom plugin. Don’t let the idea of making your own plugin seem complex or difficult–it’s admittedly quite simple to make a custom plugin, and then once it’s made you can just install it on your site like you would any other plugin.

If you have a developer helping you, they should be able to assist with making a custom plugin.

If not, then here are a few options that might help:

• Skip the idea of making your own custom plugin, and just install a free “CSS Customization” plugin from WordPress.org. There are many options; I don’t recommend any specific one, but if you just head to wordpress.org/plugins and search for “CSS customize” or something, a great number of options should show up. Seek out plugins with good ratings, high numbers of downloads, and good reviews. This a great option because these plugins should save the CSS as a database option, or perhaps write CSS files directly (though I imagine the database-saving ones are far greater in number). In either case, they changes wouldn’t be lost in a theme update.
• If you indeed want to proceed with making a custom plugin, and are at least somewhat comfortable with writing code, then search online for simple tutorials about making plugins. There are many out there; here is just one good example. Using these methods, you can write a simple plugin that injects custom CSS into the wp_head() action on your site, or you can add a CSS file in the plugin outright and load this on your pages via wp_enqueue_scripts().

If any term or concept I mention above isn’t one you’re familiar with, give it a quick Google search and you’re sure to find lots of informational material; this is a benefit of WordPress being so widely-used! 😀

I hope this information helps.

Sincerely,
George

[Support Droid]

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