@Mike: I can appreciate where you are coming from but that doesn’t work for me at all, in fact it makes my life horrible. I have multiple people writing articles from the front end. It’s an online magazine. This means that their posts will be delayed in publishing and I will have to not only edit their posts, but also try to remember which layouts I’ve selected for each category (I have 17 categories). I spent a lot of time determining which layout is best for each category. And sometimes I will want to change the sidebars for a specific category depending on several different factors. If I change the sidebars temporarily for a specific category it could take me hours upon hours to go in and change those sidebars out for each post within a particular category. I can see how it would be nice for some people to specify a layout for each particular post, but what about those of us who want to use this theme for bigger projects and need uniformity. We really need the option of having a post inherit the settings for it’s category/sub-category. There must be a way to overcome this….please. Without this, I’d be forced to spend hundreds upon hundreds of hours over a single year just changing out sidebars and layouts when I want to make a change to the structure of a single category. Please help with this. Please add an option to inherit the selections for the post category….please.

I really thought this theme was the answer for my project, but now I’m hearing 2 really bad things here that are scaring the crap out of me:

1.) Child themes might not work (this is a first and would mean suicide to use the theme, as I can’t possibly recreate all of my modifications every time there is a theme update).
2.) I have to manually change sidebars and layouts for each individual post.

Please…theme-dutch…I really like your themes, but these two issues are HUGE. Not having a child theme is suicide and having to go in and change each individual post layout is insane. I know it only takes an extra minute or two….but imagine having to go in and change the layouts of 2,000 posts because you are swapping out the sidebars to promote “Aids Awareness” for a week. Either I have to scrap everything in my sidebars and then redo it, once I’m done promoting something specific or I have to edit the layouts of a few thousand posts. I lose either way.

Not to mention that I’m going to have to go in and select individual layouts and sidebars every time I proofread a post before it’s published. I’m going to have to hire another web developer for what should be a one web developer project just to handle the layout and sidebar selection. This turns a $60 theme into a $60,0000 per year theme – which I cannot afford on a project that is more for the fun than for the money (as it likely will not produce more than $100 per month).

@Lenur: Unfortunately, even the css for the homepage isn’t working. I haven’t modified any css in the parent stylesheet, nor in the child stylesheet. It doesn’t load up the site properly at all actually. It’s seems that the styling is about 85% complete…maybe a bit more.

@Mike: 2 – I would think that you should add this feature, or it least let everyone know that they are required to build the layout of each post/page. I can’t imagine anyone running an online magazine would want to have to do that every single time they publish a post. Imagine how it would be when you have a dozen (or more) different categories – all with their own designated layout – and you have to make sure that every time you publish a post you select the proper layout and sidebars to work for that particular category.

It really limits the potential of the site in my opinion. Your team put such an incredible amount of work into this theme, but not having child theme capabilities is a HUGE NEGATIVE for any developer….I know you can’t argue with that. And to make it required to select layouts and sidebars for each post/page, rather than having the theme inherit the layout and sidebar selection from their categories, just makes it difficult and painstaking for the future administrators and editors of the site. I really beg of you to work on these two features. I know that I am not the only one who needs these two functions, and I would venture to say that nearly everyone who purchases this theme would appreciate – or possibly need – these two functions. Without these two features I cannot use this theme….it’s just simply not an option…for anything, and I will have completely wasted $60 and hours of time studying this theme.

Mike:

No..for $60 I don’t expect you to make a completely custom theme at my wishes. I have no problem making these customizations on my own, but without a child theme, my ship is sunk when it’s time to update my theme. I would think that nearly all customers would like the posts to be able to inherit their category’s selections, but I also could be wrong on that one…I admit that.

Again, I have no problem doing these customizations on my own, I just wish that I could get a little help from someone at Theme Dutch that could instruct me on which files/folders need to be moved over to the child theme for it to work so I don’t have to spend the next week trying and retrying it all until I get it right. I’m sure that Theme-Dutch.com isn’t using the parent MikMag theme, as it would mean they would have to do updates to the customer version of the theme and then again do the same updates to your own website’s theme….which is double the work for you guys.

I’m not asking for the keys to the castle Mike..you’re the keymaster buddy, not me. I’m not trying to get you guys to modify the hell out of your theme to my taste either. Just looking for a bit of guidance on making a child theme work. I’m sure if you were in my shoes, and I was in yours, you’d want instructions on creating a child theme from me. And honestly, I would gladly provide them, as I know it would save me valuable time with requests from you and other customers.

And truth be told, I will probably write a plugin version to share here on your forum for anyone else that wants to make their posts ineherit the layout and sidebar selections from their categories once I write the script. I just need to get the child theme situation first.