Magento2 Best practice to edit layout xml file

Question

Suppose that I want to edit the file

vendor/magento/module-theme/view/frontend/layout/default.xml

Do I edit the file directly?

It seems not a best practice to me.

Or is there anyway I can extend the file to override the content.

Answer 1

You can use the following to override the layout file. For Example, vendor/magento/module-theme/view/frontend/layout/default.xml

<vendor_theme_dir>
|__/<vendor_theme>
  |__/Magento_Theme
    |__/view
      |__/frontend
         |__/layout
            |__/default.xml

So you just need to override a file under your theme folder.

Answer 2

You can do the following things. Create new theme and override this layout in theme. Check luma theme, how to override any xml. And do the same. Check official documentation

Answer 3

To add an overriding theme file (to override a parent theme layout):

<theme_dir>
  |__/<Namespace_Module>
    |__/layout
      |__/override
         |__/theme
            |__/<Parent_Vendor>
               |__/<parent_theme>
                  |--<layout1>.xml
                  |--<layout2>.xml

Reference: http://devdocs.magento.com/guides/v2.2/frontend-dev-guide/layouts/layout-override.html

Answer 4

Firstly you must create a local theme, for do that you have to create the blow structure

app
---->desing
-------->frontend
------------>Vendor
---------------->default

In this folder you create 2 files

registration.php

<?php
\Magento\Framework\Component\ComponentRegistrar::register(
    \Magento\Framework\Component\ComponentRegistrar::THEME,
    'frontend/Vendor/default',
    __DIR__
);

theme.xml

<theme xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="urn:magento:framework:Config/etc/theme.xsd">
    <title>Vendor Theme</title>
</theme>

And finaly you have to create a below structure

Magento_Theme
---->layout
-------->default.xml