[[ TLDR: I'm looking for info about (or a module) that would allow me to have child themes inherit widgets from their parents. For widgets that were created on the backend. ]]
This is for Magento 1.9x (1.9.3.8 to be exact). I'll describe what I did; and then what I expected it to do but doesn't. To start with, we're using the default theme rwd/default.
Step 1: Make a static block named test_block
Step 2: make a widget, configure it to show on the right-side column
Result: GOOD - This works just fine when viewing the site with rwd/default
theme
Step 3: make a new theme: rwd/green
specified parentage in app/design/frontend/rwd/green/etc/theme.xml
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<theme>
<parent>rwd/default</parent>
</theme>
and switch appropriate settings in Configuration > GENERAL > Design > Themes
so the site uses the rwd/green
theme.
Result: BAD -- the widget does not get inherited into the child theme
Observed behaviour: widgets don't get inherited.
Expected behaviour: I expected the child theme to inherit the widget from its parent instead of me having to explicitly specify all widgets on all child themes.
This can/will be a significant pain with temporary themes (ie xmas/easter/summer break themes that are minor tweaks based on a parent and used sporadically or for a short time) or with customizations used only under a specific scope (ie. one category or one product with theme tweaks by using a child theme)
As you can imagine, specifying all those widgets explicitly for each theme color variation or for each seasonal theme is going to be an issue. I would like to be able to propagate the widgets into the child themes thus only have to set the widgets once, at the parent.
Is there a module floating around out there that covers this?
To be clear this is a question about widgets/cms blocks made using the backend system and not the layout xml/template phtml files.