How can I update a customized theme on a client's site?

[SeanConnors]

Hey everyone,

So I recently built a site for a client using the Dawn 2.0 theme. However, in order to create a lot of custom functionality, I needed to make quite a few changes to the theme code. I made changes that changed the way the page worked, as well as some visual changes that I could not achieve with the standard theme editor. Along the way, I was happy to find lots of resources on making these customizations because it meant that I was not the first person to do this. 

This is all to say that now the site needs updating, and it occurred to me that the automatic theme updates do not work on customized theme code. How can I get around this? At this point, I have many theme code documents and it would not be as simple as just adding the functions back in the updated theme files. 

Any help would be much appreciated, thanks! 🙂

[suyash1 · Accepted solution]

@SeanConnors - unfortunately only way is to add functionality again, as in shopify theme coding is separated, so once you change theme, functionality changes

[SeanConnors]

Oh man, that is a big bummer. 

Just out of curiosity, what would happen if the site was not updated for long periods of time? Would the site eventually not be able to run due to Shopify's framework? Otherwise, I'll have to find all the additions and figure out a quick way to update everything.

Thanks for you help!

[suyash1]

Your site can run for some more time but in the end all apps and framework
is going to be updated
You can ask shopify support for more