Title: wordpress 3.2.1 which is default theme ?
Last modified: August 20, 2016

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# wordpress 3.2.1 which is default theme ?

 *  [simi_id](https://wordpress.org/support/users/simi_id/)
 * (@simi_id)
 * [14 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wordpress-321-which-is-default-theme/)
 * I’m new to wordpress and just installed it.
 * In themes folder I have twentyten and twentyeleven.
    I’ve created a new folder
   mytheme and copied there header.php, created a style.css which I import style.
   css from twentyeleven and a image logo.png to replace the top text with a image.
   How the wordpress know to use by default twentyeleven theme by default and not
   other theme, cause when I refreshed the website it works only with those 2 files,
   but with twentyeleven theme layout.
 * Thanks.

Viewing 9 replies - 1 through 9 (of 9 total)

 *  [peredur](https://wordpress.org/support/users/peredur/)
 * (@peredur)
 * [14 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wordpress-321-which-is-default-theme/#post-2240900)
 * WP uses whatever theme is activated. If your activated theme is a child theme
   of twenty eleven, there will be a comment block inside your child theme’s style.
   css file that says that twenty eleven is the parent. So when looking for a file,
   WP looks first in the child theme and then, if it doesn’t find it, in the parent
   theme, which is twenty eleven in this case.
 * If you changed your child theme to say that another theme was its parent (say
   twenty ten, for example), then you would get that theme’s output for everything
   except the stuff in your child.
 * Cheers
 * PAE
 *  Thread Starter [simi_id](https://wordpress.org/support/users/simi_id/)
 * (@simi_id)
 * [14 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wordpress-321-which-is-default-theme/#post-2240904)
 * Thanks for the answer … but …
 * I just created that folder, and in themes appeared my theme, twentyeleven and
   twentyten. And I activated my theme (header.php, style.css and logo.png in that
   folder).
    And the site works on the twentyeleven layout. I also deleted style.
   css and still works on twentyeleven layout, of course the text is not formatted
   but the layout is twentyleven. That’s intriguing me, why is still used twentyeleven
   layout.
 *  [peredur](https://wordpress.org/support/users/peredur/)
 * (@peredur)
 * [14 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wordpress-321-which-is-default-theme/#post-2240906)
 * It works on the twenty eleven layout because it hasn’t found anything in the 
   child to overwrite what’s in twenty eleven.
 * If you delete your style.css file your child theme will no longer be found. It
   therefore cannot be activated and so WP will fall back on twenty eleven, which
   is currently the default theme.
 * Cheers
 * PAE
 *  Thread Starter [simi_id](https://wordpress.org/support/users/simi_id/)
 * (@simi_id)
 * [14 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wordpress-321-which-is-default-theme/#post-2240910)
 * So by default twentyeleven it’s default theme even I didn’t specified.
    And when
   there will be a twentytwelve theme it will work on twentytwelve. How do I specify
   in this case to stick to twentyeleven ?
 * Thanks again.
 *  [peredur](https://wordpress.org/support/users/peredur/)
 * (@peredur)
 * [14 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wordpress-321-which-is-default-theme/#post-2240914)
 * Well, there has to be a default, otherwise what would WP do when first installed?
 * Once you’ve activated a theme, that’s the one WP uses. The installation activates
   twenty eleven, but what you’ve done is returned WP to the situation where no 
   theme at all is activated, because you’ve effectively scrapped your child theme
   without activating another one. So WP falls back to the default.
 * So you don’t need to specify anything.
 * Cheers
 * PAE
 *  Thread Starter [simi_id](https://wordpress.org/support/users/simi_id/)
 * (@simi_id)
 * [14 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wordpress-321-which-is-default-theme/#post-2240919)
 * Thank you very much now is clear.
 * So that’s how it works a child outside a theme.
 * In style.css from themename2 to specify which theme is used
 * /*
    Template: themename1 */
 * Then to activate themename1 which has all files, and after to activate themename2
   which has only somefiles to overwrite the themename1 styles.
 * Thanks again.
 *  [peredur](https://wordpress.org/support/users/peredur/)
 * (@peredur)
 * [14 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wordpress-321-which-is-default-theme/#post-2240927)
 * Nope. A child theme must contain a style sheet comment block like this:
 *     ```
       /*
       Theme Name:     Twenty Eleven Child
       Theme URI:      http: //example.com/
       Description:    Child theme for the Twenty Eleven theme
       Author:         Your name here
       Author URI:     http: //example.com/about/
       Template:       twentyeleven
       Version:        0.1.0
       */
       ```
   
 * See [http://codex.wordpress.org/Child_Themes](http://codex.wordpress.org/Child_Themes)
 * Only the Theme Name and Template lines are mandatory.
 * A parent theme would contain a comment block like this:
 *     ```
       /*
       Theme Name: Twenty Ten
       Theme URI: http://wordpress.org/
       Description: The 2010 default theme for WordPress.
       Author: wordpressdotorg
       Author URI: http://wordpress.org/
       Version: 1.0
       Tags: black, blue, white, two-columns, fixed-width, custom-header, custom-background, threaded-comments, sticky-post, translation-ready, microformats, rtl-language-support, editor-style, custom-menu (optional)
   
       License:
       License URI:
   
       General comments (optional).
       */
       ```
   
 * See [http://codex.wordpress.org/Theme_Development](http://codex.wordpress.org/Theme_Development)
 * What you were quoting was the comment block for a custom page. Not the same thing
   at all.
 * And also no about activation. Only one theme can be active.
 * HTH
 * PAE
 *  Thread Starter [simi_id](https://wordpress.org/support/users/simi_id/)
 * (@simi_id)
 * [14 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wordpress-321-which-is-default-theme/#post-2241055)
 * Thanks peredur.
 * And here are more resources for anyone also interested in this topic.
    [http://op111.net/53/](http://op111.net/53/)
 *  Thread Starter [simi_id](https://wordpress.org/support/users/simi_id/)
 * (@simi_id)
 * [14 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wordpress-321-which-is-default-theme/#post-2241062)
 * [http://codex.wordpress.org/Child_Themes](http://codex.wordpress.org/Child_Themes)

Viewing 9 replies - 1 through 9 (of 9 total)

The topic ‘wordpress 3.2.1 which is default theme ?’ is closed to new replies.

 * 9 replies
 * 2 participants
 * Last reply from: [simi_id](https://wordpress.org/support/users/simi_id/)
 * Last activity: [14 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wordpress-321-which-is-default-theme/#post-2241062)
 * Status: not resolved

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