JaW Templates Support Forum

How do you update but keep all your changes if you didn't use a child theme?   I get that updating is essentially copying the files of the update and over writing the file already there, but wordpress has existed for years now and no one has come up with a way to update a theme without losing all formating and changes?   The truth is somewhere I read that FlyingNews doesn't work with a child theme (I'm not sure where, I don't think it was here.)  And since there was a note about not updating the theme too often I did not consider this a problem.  But there's an update now and I don't want to just do it and lose everything I've been working on.   If there a method to update without losing the changes?