I love Tortuga theme, and I am using it for this site.
In this post, I will give some tips on ho to make it even better.
The first thing I did was changing footer text without removing do_action in the footer.php file. I managed to override the function in my child theme.
I had trouble changing footer text (copyright) to suit my needs without removing do_action in the footer.php file.
tortuga_footer_text action is located in tortuga/inc/template-tags.php file that is required from parent theme’s functions.php using get_template_directory() function instead of get_stylesheet_directory()
The problem
This is the problem #1 as you can’t just copy this file, modify it and upload it in your child theme directory as parent theme’s template-tags.php file will still be used instead.
You have to require this copied template-tags.php file in your child theme’s functions.php file. However, this is when problem #2 arises. If you require this file, you will get an error as function tortuga_footer_text gets declared two times. First in child theme’s template-tags.php file and then again in parent theme’s template-tags.php file
It’s because functions.php file from child theme doesn’t override parent theme’s functions.php file. Instead, it just loads first.
This problem would have been easily avoided by the theme developers if
a) they used get_stylesheet_directory() function when they required template-tags.php file or
b) wrapped this tortuga_footer_text action from the template-tags.php inside of the following code as they did with all of the other functions,
if ( ! function_exists( 'tortuga_footer_text' ) ) : /*function here*/ endif;
The solution
Obviously, you could utilize one of the solutions above on your own and modify the parent theme, but that is not the best practice. Child themes are meant to prevent custom modifications getting wiped whenever parent theme is updated. Hence I propose two solutions:
Solution #1 – forget about the template-tags.php file and modify the footer.php template. Just erase do_action( 'tortuga_footer_text' );
line and insert your html. Insert your code inside tags to get the same styling as the original theme if you wish.
This solution has a limitation as you won’t have an easy access for changing all of the other functions declared in template-tags.php file. Below is the recommended solution.
Solution #2 – Copy the template-tags.php file to your child theme folder. Modify the tortuga_footer_text function; just replace tortuga with your child-theme name and then change this newly created function as you wish.
Example:
function child_theme_footer_text() {
?>
<span class="credit-link">
<?php echo 'Copyright © 2016 <a href="/">MyChildTheme</a>'; ?>
</span>
<?php
}
add_action( 'child_theme_footer_text', 'child_theme_footer_text' );
After this step, you should be okay to require this newly created template-tags.php file in your child theme’s functions.php file like this:
require get_stylesheet_directory() . '/inc/template-tags.php';
The last step is to modify the footer.php file. Just replace the
<?php do_action( 'tortuga_footer_text' ); ?>
with
<?php do_action( 'child_theme_footer_text' ); ?>
Hope this tip helps if you are running beautiful Tortuga theme as well as the other themes that may have given you headaches with requiring template-tags.php file inside child theme’s functions.php file.
In Tortuga theme’s footer, there is a do_action function called learnedia_footer_menu, but there was no footer menu available. Instead, you have to register new menu in your functions.php file. This is how you do it:
function register_menu() {
register_nav_menu('footer-menu', __('Footer Menu'));
}
add_action('init', 'register_menu');
add_action ('learnedia_footer_menu', 'learnedia_footer_menu' );
function learnedia_footer_menu(){
if ( has_nav_menu( 'footer-menu' ) ) {
wp_nav_menu( array( 'theme_location' => 'footer-menu') );
}
}
Place the above code in your functions.php file. You can change the function name to a whatever unique name you choose. You just have to make sure to call the right function in child theme’s footer.php file.
So, in my example, I would modify the line to look like this:
<?php do_action( 'learnedia_footer_menu' ); ?>
Now you can create your Footer Menu in the admin dashboard and check it out in action.
Adding some margin to previous and next post links

One thing I didn’t like in the post design is no breathing room for the previous and next post links. Check out the screen shot of the entry footer before the changes I made to the Tortuga child theme.Fortunately, this can be solved easily. Just add the following CSS to the style.css file in the child theme of the Tortuga theme:
.entry-footer {
margin-top: 35px;
}
The result:

Obviously, you can change the value of margin-top to whatever you want; I am happy with 35px.
If you have any further questions about how to customize your Tortuga theme-based website, please contact me or comment below or go through official Tortuga theme docs. Thanks for reading.
hello how to remove link
Hi Pooja,
sorry for the late reply. Please let me know what link are you referring to? In the footer?
Thanks
how to move post title above featured image in single post or blog.Tortuga theme
sorry, can u help me? how to make search collum on header to be in navigation bar!
Hello, sorry for the late reply, you need to find search function in the header.php file and move it to the nav bar. If you still need help with that, please let me know
I dont know what happened, I think it was a WP update but I had all posts on the home page and one just needed to scroll down the post pic and short descriptpion. Now, its only one post, then you have to go to the next page.etc: Thats over a thousand pages!!! And I can only get one column, Ive tried everything,from deactivating plugins to checking the SSL. What up with this damn thing?
Hi Jim, if you suspect its the WP update that messed up your site (although it seems unlikely) you can try to re-install the older WP version (but that’s just a short term measure to identify the problem, you should always keep the WP core up to date). It could be that the theme update or rather a plugin update is a culprit, in that case I would suggest installing a WP Rollback plugin to try to downgrade the theme and or plugins until you figure out the cause. If you need additional help, you can contact me via contact form on Contact page with more details and I’d be happy to take a look
Hello! I use Tortuga with a child theme (min changes in functions), everything was working fine until the update that removed Genericons and replaced it with Genericons-Neue. Icons for meta-data (author, post time) now appear oversized, and are not inline, rather block. When I change the active theme to Tortuga, everything works fine. As it appears that my child theme is the problem here, perhaps you have an easy fix for this problem? Thanks in advance for your time and help.
Hi Bobo, sounds like a CSS issue to me…
Do you have a lot of CSS changes in your Tortuga child theme style.css file? Send me a link to your site and I’ll have a look, you can use the contact form https://www.learnedia.com/contact/
You can also temporarily revert the parent theme to the older version until you fix the problem. You can use rollback plugin for that
Thanks for a quick reply. I assume I have to link somehow these new icons, but am unsure is it possible just via functions.php. Sending link in a sec. Thank you for your time.