Adding Theme Options to a Thematic Child Theme

Thematic is a pretty awesome theme framework for WordPress, but there are some annoying things about it. One annoying thing I ran into was not being able to easily create a nifty looking Theme Options page. Themes like Avada gave me the impression that they were not all that difficult, but I was wrong, I was horribly wrong. After tutorial searching for a day I’ve put together a template that might help you out in the future if you ever need something like this.

Here’s a picture of what we’re going to achieve:

It has a basic textbox, an image selection, and an upload that integrates with WordPress.

In your Thematic Child Theme’s functions.php add the following code: Link

You’re also going to need to add a “js” folder if you don’t have one and add a file called “theme-options.js” with the following code: Link

In order to add your own settings scroll down to the ct_register_settings function. There are three things you’ll need to know about adding your own settings:

1. add_settings_section
2. $field_args
3. add_settings_field

add_settings_section

If you need sections separating settings then add another to the list, the functions goes as such:

add_settings_section( 'section_handle', 'Title of the Section', 'display_section', 'php name of theme page' );

You don’t need to worry about the last two.

$field_args

To make it easy  the args for each settings are stored in an array.  If you’re adding another setting duplicator the following and make the changes below:

$field_args = array(
      'type'      => 'text',
      'id'        => 'ct_textbox',
      'name'      => 'ct_textbox',
      'desc'      => 'Example of textbox description',
      'label_for' => 'ct_textbox',
      'class'     => 'css_class'
);

• $field_args
  • Change it so it has a good name for a handle
• type
  • Leave as ‘text’ unless your making a custom field
• id
  • Change if you need that particular field to have a custom id
• name
  • Can be the same as the $field_args without the ‘$’
• desc
  • Not necessary, but you can add a description if needed
• label_for
  • Match the ID
• class
  • Class for the field

add_settings_field

After you’re finished adding the arguments for the field we need WordPress to add it to the list. Duplicate the following with the necessary changes:

add_settings_field( 'settings_handle', 'Name of the Setting', 'ct_display_setting', 'theme_php.php', 'section-handle', $arg_handle );

If you’re unsure look at the others. If you have any trouble let me know!