Hi argie01,
Welcome. Code modifications are done by creating functions and putting them in the functions file. Styling modifications are done in the child theme's style.css file.
The beauty of using the Thematic frameowrk is that when new features are added, you can upgrade easily because all of your changes happen in the child theme, specifically in the child theme's style.css and functions.php files.
What you're talking about above are changes to "The Loop" in WordPress. The way to change the behavior of this loop in Thematic is to create a function that overrides the standard Thematic loop. Any changes you'd like to your loop would be included in the loop function. The same goes for category pages.
For instance, if I click a category on my install, it displays all the posts in that category. This happens because it's using a category loop...the same loop as above, but it's pulling posts by category. So, I had a need to change this behavior because I wanted to include some content inside the standard category loop. To do this, I had to create a function to override the category loop.
Check it out:
function remove_categoryloop() {
remove_action('thematic_categoryloop', 'thematic_category_loop');
}
add_action('init', 'remove_categoryloop');
function my_categoryloop() {
while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
<div id="post-<?php the_ID(); ?>" class="<?php thematic_post_class(); ?>">
<?php thematic_postheader(); ?>
<div class="my-content">
This is my added content
</div>
<div class="entry-content">
<?php thematic_content(); ?>
</div>
<?php thematic_postfooter(); ?>
</div><!-- .post -->
<?php endwhile;
}
add_action('thematic_categoryloop', 'my_categoryloop');
I plopped this into functions.php of my child theme, and now on my category pages I see "This is my added content".
Make sense?
I know this probably seems like a real pain in the rear, but once you get familiar with changing content like this, you'll be amazed at the possibilities. I can't tell you how many sites I've made where I've heavily edited the core theme files only to have the theme code break due to WP upgrades.
Using the Thematic framework is preventative maintenance that will future-proof your sites.
