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Starhugger -> FP Theme Overrides CSS (9/16/2005 21:28:51)

I'm using an FP2003 theme that I created. I'm trying to use CSS to tailor the headings (h1, h2, etc.) to what I want for a page or series of pages (e.g., font size, colour, etc.). I've tried putting the specs in a separate stylesheet and linking to it. I've tried putting a <style> </style> statement in the <head> section. But the theme always overrides the style specs, at least with the heading tags.

I've found that if I put the <style> statement or the link to the stylesheet AFTER the <meta name="Microsoft Theme" ...etc. tag, it will override the theme defaults in Preview. But then when I load it up in a browser or reload the page in FP, it rearranges the Head tag lines to put the theme tag last in the Head section, which then overrides any CSS specs.

What am I doing wrong?

Starhugger



caz -> RE: FP Theme Overrides CSS (9/16/2005 22:10:36)

Without seeing your code and not having used MS Themes, I would guess that you have inline styles somewhere, which take precedence over embedded and linked external stylesheets. But it is only a guess [:D]



Starhugger -> RE: FP Theme Overrides CSS (9/17/2005 0:29:54)

quote:

ORIGINAL: caz

Without seeing your code and not having used MS Themes, I would guess that you have inline styles somewhere, which take precedence over embedded and linked external stylesheets. But it is only a guess [:D]

Hi Caz,

Here's a sample of the code. I don't have any in-line modifiers on the hx tags. 

<head>
<meta name="GENERATOR" content="Microsoft FrontPage 6.0">
<meta name="ProgId" content="FrontPage.Editor.Document">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=windows-1252">
<title>Mars Retrograde 2005</title>

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="../edrxarticles.css">

<meta name="Microsoft Theme" content="edwhite 1011, default">
<meta name="Microsoft Border" content="tb, default">
</head>
<body class="ednormal">

<h1>Mars Retrograde 2005</h1>
<p>August 2005. The big news arrives in my inbox!</p> (etc...)

I'm really scratching my head on this one. I don't want to have to change the theme defaults for the header tags because then I'd have to go back through a couple of hundred pages to see how it affects them. Ouch. I don't have time. I need to get this page uploaded in the next couple of days.

Oh: "ednormal" is just a style that is 10pt, Tahoma, left-aligned.

Oops! Another edit. This is the h1 tag in the CSS stylesheet: 

h1 {
 font-size: 24pt;
 text-align: left; 
 }


H1 is defined as 24pt, but displays as 35pt, which it's getting from the theme defaults.

Starhugger



Tailslide -> RE: FP Theme Overrides CSS (9/17/2005 3:59:05)

Also the order in which you declare the CSS matters - so you might want to try to move your stylesheet link to AFTER the MS theme thing.

So it'd be like this:
[code]<meta name="Microsoft Theme" content="edwhite 1011, default">
<meta name="Microsoft Border" content="tb, default">
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="../edrxarticles.css"[>/code]

If the microsoft theme thing (and I'm not sure how they work so this is a guess) contains CSS of some kind then it might override the previously mentioned Stylesheet.



caz -> RE: FP Theme Overrides CSS (9/17/2005 4:21:39)

But I thought that had been tried ?,
quote:

But then when I load it up in a browser or reload the page in FP, it rearranges the Head tag lines to put the theme tag last in the Head section, which then overrides any CSS specs


Which is why I suggested that here must be inline styling overiding somewhere along the line, but now it seems not. Has this actually been published to a server, or is this just happening locally? The only other thing that I can think of is that you are choosing to "Optimise code" when publishing. This is something I don't do as I vaguely remember reading that it can do strange things. In your settings you do have "preserve existing html" ticked, don't you?

Sorry, as I said I have no experience of "Themes", I just regard them as templates - obviously they do more than that.[:@]



Tailslide -> RE: FP Theme Overrides CSS (9/17/2005 4:35:36)

I didn't see the bit about FP automatically putting the theme stuff after the style link - how annoying!

I don't suppose it's possible to get into the theme itself and edit it is it?

If Caz's suggestion doesn't work then it looks like your choices are:

Dump the theme
Put the particular problem style in the document head and see if it too get's overruled.
If it does get overruled then you'd be stuck with using inline styling - blaagh!



caz -> RE: FP Theme Overrides CSS (9/17/2005 4:37:05)

quote:

'm using an FP2003 theme that I created.


Of course you could add a special class of <h1 class="special"> to the html containing the changes you want for the new pages, with
h1.special {
font-size: 24pt;
text-align: left;
}
in the theme stylesheet (if it has one [;)])

Or even for inline styling using Find and Replace in the html.

Hey Tail, we'll have to synchronise our posting sometime [:D]



Starhugger -> RE: FP Theme Overrides CSS (9/17/2005 4:49:01)


quote:

ORIGINAL: caz

Has this actually been published to a server, or is this just happening locally? The only other thing that I can think of is that you are choosing to "Optimise code" when publishing. This is something I don't do as I vaguely remember reading that it can do strange things. In your settings you do have "preserve existing html" ticked, don't you?

Sorry, as I said I have no experience of "Themes", I just regard them as templates - obviously they do more than that.[:@]

[:@] indeed! No, I do not "optimize html" when publishing. I hadn't heard that there would be problems, but I decided I didn't want to trust it. Just sounded like a heap of problems waiting for a chance to play.

Tailslide, Caz is right that I did try reordering the Head tags. It works in Preview, but FP rearranges it back when I refresh it in FP or test it in a browser.

Caz, to answer your question, no I haven't published this to a server yet. Maybe that will make a difference. I did finally hook it up to my navigation, thinking maybe it would be easier for it to find the CSS that way, but it didn't make a difference when I tested it in a browser. I'll try publishing it tomorrow and see what it does.

Thanks for your help and suggestions, you guys. [:)] It's awful when the blasted thing won't work and you have no one to turn to for help!

Starhugger



Starhugger -> RE: FP Theme Overrides CSS (9/17/2005 4:56:05)


quote:

ORIGINAL: caz

Hey Tail, we'll have to synchronise our posting sometime [:D]

Me three! [:D]

So far I have been using (most of the time) a class modification on the heading lines. Actually, I had dropped most of the H-tags and just had my own CSS formatting, but recently started using the H-tags again because I kept seeing references to the SEs treating them differently. Someone (here? another forum? Yes, Virginia, believe it or not, there are other forums... [;)]) recommended that I try to use the H-tags as-is in-line as much as possible (ie, not modify them with CSS classes). So I thought I'd try that this time. And look what I get for my troubles. Sigh. Now I see why I dropped the H-tags in the first place. What a pain! I'm seriously starting to consider Dreamweaver when I am ready for another upgrade...

Starhugger



caz -> RE: FP Theme Overrides CSS (9/17/2005 5:04:10)

quote:

What a pain! I'm seriously starting to consider Dreamweaver when I am ready for another upgrade...


Save your money and dump Themes, construct your own templates within FP instead - that's what I do and I have no problems with my own[;)]

I think that there may be a tutorial on this in the Tutorials/FAQ section in the menu bar above.



caz -> RE: FP Theme Overrides CSS (9/17/2005 5:10:08)

Another thought, you are using this on the body- Oh: "ednormal" is just a style that is 10pt, Tahoma, left-aligned.

And then you are styling the h1 as 24pt - maybe inheritance is giving you the 35pt result? ( As in 10+24 displaying as 35? Points can display strangely on the screen anyway)



jaybee -> RE: FP Theme Overrides CSS (9/17/2005 5:14:23)

There are FP themes and FP themes. If you use an FP theme and tick the styles box then FP dumps all its own CSS into the mix and there lies mayhem and disaster as you are finding out.

I have one site that I originally used a theme on, then I took it off. When I was first finding out about css I noticed the tick box in the FP theme and ticked it to see what would happen.

I have since completely rebuilt the site without themes, using proper css rather than the Microsoft hybrid. It took me weeks but now I can maintain it easily.

Once you have switched on an MS special in FP, no matter where you move it to, FP will move it back. Sheer arrogance. It believes it takes priority.

If you want to move to another development tool then fine but if you want to stay with FP just turn off, or better still, uninstall themes (control panel) and design it yourself or go get a template.



Tailslide -> RE: FP Theme Overrides CSS (9/17/2005 6:14:55)

I wouldn't bother switching to DW - I know there are some fans here but in my opinion DW also "helps out" where you perhaps wish it wouldn't. All wysiwyg editors have their quirks - some are better than others but then some are a LOT more expensive than others! In the end, the more you do manually (in whatever editor you use) the better.

If you really want control then consider switching to a HTML editor like HTML-kit (free|). There you do it all yourself but you do have a preview window so that you can see what's going on.



dpf -> RE: FP Theme Overrides CSS (9/17/2005 9:29:30)

quote:

but in my opinion DW also "helps out" where you perhaps wish it wouldn't
I havent found that to be the case at all.



Starhugger -> RE: FP Theme Overrides CSS (9/17/2005 14:10:40)


quote:

ORIGINAL: caz

Another thought, you are using this on the body- Oh: "ednormal" is just a style that is 10pt, Tahoma, left-aligned.

And then you are styling the h1 as 24pt - maybe inheritance is giving you the 35pt result? ( As in 10+24 displaying as 35? Points can display strangely on the screen anyway)

I don't think so, Caz, because when I go into HTML tag definitions in the theme customization, I see that the default is set to 36pt. And especially because it's playing this shell game with me about the order of the Head tags, to place its own tag last (MS just has to have the last word... [:D]), I'm sure that's where it's coming from.

Starhugger



Starhugger -> RE: FP Theme Overrides CSS (9/17/2005 14:46:12)


quote:

ORIGINAL: jaybee

There are FP themes and FP themes. If you use an FP theme and tick the styles box then FP dumps all its own CSS into the mix and there lies mayhem and disaster as you are finding out.

I have one site that I originally used a theme on, then I took it off. When I was first finding out about css I noticed the tick box in the FP theme and ticked it to see what would happen.

What styles box? Where would I find this? I'm not seeing anything in the Themes customization area, unless I'm looking right at it and not seeing it.

quote:

I have since completely rebuilt the site without themes, using proper css rather than the Microsoft hybrid. It took me weeks but now I can maintain it easily.

Sigh... I think I may be stuck with this one for the time being. I really don't have weeks to spare to shape this thing up to where it should be. I have too many other priorities, on this site and other projects. If I could just clone myself I'd be able to stay on top of all this...

quote:

If you want to move to another development tool then fine but if you want to stay with FP just turn off, or better still, uninstall themes (control panel) and design it yourself or go get a template.

Thanks, I'll consider that. There's a lot about FP I like. The IDEA of the themes is one of them. Unfortunately they look good "on paper" but seem to fall apart when you get them into real life. Maybe I can gradually work on creating some CSS templates and replace pages gradually. I really don't have the time to do it as a primary project, although I can see that it would make life a lot easier if I did. Clones, I tell you, CLONES!!

Starhugger



jaybee -> RE: FP Theme Overrides CSS (9/17/2005 14:55:10)

Of course the other problem with FP themes is

Everybody has the same set so you keep bumping into them on your way round the web.

The css styles was an option somewhere in the apply themes. Can't tell you where as I uninstalled the whole shebang. I'll go see if I can find it.



jaybee -> RE: FP Theme Overrides CSS (9/17/2005 14:58:45)

OK, maybe that little horror only appeared in FP 2000. It seems to have gone in 2003.

[sm=yupi3ti.gif]



Starhugger -> RE: FP Theme Overrides CSS (9/17/2005 15:17:43)


quote:

ORIGINAL: jaybee

Of course the other problem with FP themes is

Everybody has the same set so you keep bumping into them on your way round the web.

Exactly. Which is why I finally created my own. [:)] I have to admit I've had a lot of problems with it though.

quote:

The css styles was an option somewhere in the apply themes. Can't tell you where as I uninstalled the whole shebang. I'll go see if I can find it.

Thanks Jaybee!

Starhugger



Starhugger -> RE: FP Theme Overrides CSS (9/17/2005 16:10:06)


quote:

ORIGINAL: jaybee

OK, maybe that little horror only appeared in FP 2000. It seems to have gone in 2003.

[sm=yupi3ti.gif]

Ya right. Now it's BUILT IN! [:D]

Starhugger



jaybee -> RE: FP Theme Overrides CSS (9/17/2005 16:41:18)

Yes but at least you don't feel so bad when you have no choice. It's when you just idly clicked on it to see what would happen and you completely wrecked a 500 page web site.

You have nobody to kick but yourself. [&:][&:]



Starhugger -> RE: FP Theme Overrides CSS (9/18/2005 12:46:29)

Okay, I finally got a chance to upload the files. Some of them I have hooked into the navigation and others not yet. But none of them are working still. [:@]

The collapsible list comes up as collapsed (as it should) but can't be expanded. The list itself is imported through the FP include page web component (FP's version of SSI). I've used this before with no problems, but this is the first time I've used the include with a UL, and it's the first time I've tried using a collapsible list.

The H-tags are still being overridden by FP's theme defaults. I can override them by using a class modifier in-line, but not through H-tag definitions in the stylesheet.

Here's a link to one of the pages.

http://www.evolvingdoor.ca/testonly/rxintro.htm

Maybe someone can help me figure out at least how to get the list to expand. The H-tags I can get to work -- not like I would like to do it, but it will work. But the list "should" work and doesn't.

Starhugger



scottishagate -> RE: FP Theme Overrides CSS (10/5/2005 17:16:11)

quote:

ORIGINAL: jaybee if you want to stay with FP just turn off, or better still, uninstall themes (control panel)
Hi, jaybee. Excuse my butting in!
I have switched off the Theme I was using in FP 2003, but seem to have "fragments" lying around. How do you completely uninstall themes? I can't find FP Themes in Windows Control Panel.
Grateful for your help.



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