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WordPress How to Make a Website with WordPress Customizing WordPress Themes How to Make Child Themes

Posted by Zachary grace
Zachary grace
6,682 Points

@import rule

So in the WordPress video "How to make a child theme", Zac says to use the @import rule to import the stylesheet. I have heard that using the @import rule is not a good idea at all. Is it necessary for WordPress? or can you just use the link rule alternatively?

2 Answers

Joe Purdy
Joe Purdy
23,237 Points

You heard right. Using @import is less efficient than a link rule. In a nutshell multiple link rules will download simultaneously, however multiple @imports download one by one. However it is a Wordpress quirk that creates the need for @import to be used when creating child themes. There's a number of workarounds you can use if you're concerned with the performance hit from using @import. If you want to learn more about these workarounds I'd recommend the following blog article on the subject: http://wptest.means.us.com/2012/04/wordpress-child-themes-4-ways-to-avoid-inefficient-css-import/

And if you want to learn more about the technical reasoning behind why @import is less efficient there's a great blog post by Steve Sounders at http://www.stevesouders.com/blog/2009/04/09/dont-use-import/

Cheers!

Zachary grace
Zachary grace
6,682 Points

Thank you Joe! I appreciate your feedback! And thank you for giving me some great reading material!

Jason Brady
Jason Brady
17,372 Points
Jason Brady
Jason Brady
17,372 Points

Additionally, the wordpress codex (http://codex.wordpress.org/Child_Themes) describes exactly how to go about correctly adding the child's style.css.

"@import should not be used to import the parent stylesheet into the child theme. The correct method is to use wp_enqueue_style() to enqueue the parent stylesheet, using this code in your child theme's "functions.php"."