Documentation

Learn about Reptile and our Reptile skins.

Reptile Skins

A Reptile skin is a WordPress theme powered by Reptile. Reptile is an advanced WordPress theme, but it does nothing without a Reptile skin. Reptile skins are similar to child themes in other frameworks.

How Is A Reptile Skin Different From A WordPress Theme?

For the most part it is pretty much the same. The main difference is it uses Reptile PHP functions to replace the standard PHP functions used in a WordPress theme. For example, I would do the following to load the header.php file in a template:

  • Standard WordPress Theme - <?php get_header(); ?>
  • Reptile Skin - <?php $reptile->load_header(); ?>

Can I Use A Reptile Skin Without Reptile?

No. Reptile skins are coded to take advantage of Reptile’s PHP functions and will not work without Reptile. With that being said you could replace all of the Reptile PHP functions with standard WordPress PHP functions and now you have a standard WordPress theme instead of a Reptile skin. The disadvantage is you lose the ability to use the options in Reptile’s control panel.

Can I Convert A WordPress Theme Into A Reptile Skin?

It depends. We have successfully converted quite a few WordPress themes into Reptile skins. It does require changing some WordPress PHP functions to Reptile’s PHP functions. The end result varies depending upon how the theme was developed.