About child themes
A child theme is only necessary if you need to modify theme files at a code level.
If you just need to modify CSS then a child theme isn’t necessary, you can use a Custom CSS plugin: https://siteorigin.com/css/.
If you’d like to know more about WordPress child themes, please, see: https://codex.wordpress.org/Child_Themes.
SiteOrigin have vanilla/starter themes available. They aren’t currently listed in one place. If you need a starter child theme, let us know.
Onto the main topic:
What to expect when activating a child theme
After installing a child theme from Appearance > Themes > Add New > Upload Theme > Activate it is normal for the following to happen:
1. Appearance > Menus > Menu Location settings to reset.
2. Appearance > Customize settings to reset.
3. Occasionally, widgets might drop from active widget areas at Appearance > Widgets and move to the Inactive widgets area at the bottom of the page.
Unfortunately, these are expected results when activating a child theme. The above settings will need to be applied again.
If you switch to a child theme very early on in development then you might have to do very little work after activating. However, if you’ve applied several settings in Appearance > Customize it might take more time. My shortcut for doing this is as follows:
1. Open Appearance > Customize with your parent/main theme activated.
2. In a new window, activate the chid theme.
3. You now have your original Customizer settings in one window and your new child theme Customizer in the other window. You can manually copy each setting over.
If you have any questions relating to the above info. Please, feel free to post below and we’ll do our best to help.