I'm a new user, installed at ls4.us/dr. I'm using Bluemarine theme and can not for the life of me figure out how to customize it. OH, I did stick some html right into the title to change its color, and did switch logos, but could not even figure out how to do them the right way.

I have studied the Documentation ----but apparently not enough. I am comfortable with html and css, but a real newbie with php---inexperienced but not necessarily afraid of it.

I would have thought I could change the look by going to bluemarine>style.css, but that's not the case. I go to bluemarine>xtemplate.xtmpl and I see nothing there to change.

The data must be held in a database somewhere, but, even though I've looked at the tables, I can't find it.

So, friends, where do I find the data to change to change backgrounds, font color, font size, col width ----that sort of thing?

And where in the documentation does it tell me this?

Thanks, Keith

Comments

Dublin Drupaller’s picture

Hi Keith,

As a tip..I would tend to advise using a phptemplate based theme...not because it's better than an xtemplate theme..but simply because I found it incredibly simple to tweak and modify once I got over the initial hurdle of how to insert, move around php statements.

Like you, I'm not an expert in PHP...but the beauty of phptemplate is that you don't need to be. And like you I was put off by it's name initially...phptemplate infers that you need to know php to get into it. You do..but it is only a very basic knowledge of how to use very simple php statements that are not a million miles from HTML statements.

A lot of layout control is in the STYLE SHEETS.i.e. the .CSS files that come with the theme.

If you want to stick with the bluemarine theme you have and just tweak that..no worries..recommend you make a copy of the existing one and creat a new theme of your own to play with. i.e. don't play around with the default so if something goes wrong, you can revert back.

Hope that makes sense.

Dub

DUBLIN DRUPALLER
___________________________________________________
A drupal user by chance and a dubliner by sheer luck.
Using Drupal to help build Artist & Band web communities.

Currently in Switzerland working as an Application Developer with UBS Investment Bank...using Drupal 7 and lots of swiss chocolate

kaw’s picture

Thanks for the tip, Dub.

But where do I tweak Bluemarine????

Keith

micha_1977’s picture

but to "tweak" you should first ask, what you want and then we might help you with some directions

-micha
work in progress with Drupal 4.6: langmi.de

kaw’s picture

....as mentioned in my initial post,
"..........where do I find the data to change to change backgrounds, font color, font size, col width ----that sort of thing?"

Specific examples:
*Change background color in header
*Make right-side column narrower
*Make font smaller in Aggregator news headlines

I changed some things in styles.css, which seemed to me to be the logical place to do it, but my changes had no effect.

Hope you can point me in the right direction, Micha.

Keith

Dublin Drupaller’s picture

Like I said...in the CSS file...

Go to the following folder:

/themes/bluemarine/

there should be a style.css and a xtemplate.xtmpl file in there.

Tweak the CSS file...which is a bog standard style sheet.

or go to the documentation to tweak the xtemplate.xtmpl file.

Although...if I were in your shoes.....[read my previous post]

Hope that makes sense..

Dub

DUBLIN DRUPALLER
___________________________________________________
A drupal user by chance and a dubliner by sheer luck.
Using Drupal to help build Artist & Band web communities.

Currently in Switzerland working as an Application Developer with UBS Investment Bank...using Drupal 7 and lots of swiss chocolate

kaw’s picture

Dub,

Sorry, in your first comment I took your reference to styles.css to apply to the php template you were advocating; sorry.

Now the initial confusion: I did make changes to styles.css and they did nothing (cache is off) to the appearance of the page. That's where the "numbers" (specific data) is, or should be, so I would think that would control ---but it doesn't seem to.

I look at the xtemplate.xtmpl and basically see no numbers (no colors, no fonts, no col widths, etc) so I am confused as to where the "numbers" are stored.

You are telling me the entire look is in styles.css and xtemplate.xtmpl, right?

If so, any reason why my styles.css seems not be in charge of the things I would expect it to control????

The help from both you guys, and any others is greatly appreciated, by the way. I basically gave up on Mambo about a year ago. Sure hope this doesn't end up with the same fate!

Cheers, Keith

nevets’s picture

There are more ways than one to have things cached, besides Drupal two that may cause you problems are your host (only time will clear this) and your browser. The browser one is easy to check, try a different browser and see how it looks. Clicking the refresh button often works (will simply reloading the page may note). You can also trying going to a different page then back. And you can also try closing the browser and starting the browser again.

Still not working, make sure your css syntax is right, depending on the broswer syntax problems will cause things to to work in some fashion.

Hope this helps

Willem van Straaten’s picture

I use bluemarine for all my sites. To change colors all you need to edit is the style sheet. As said previously i also suggest to copy the bluemarine folder and to rename it. It will show up immediately in your Admin themes. xtemplate.xtmpl is used more for layout like page width etc. It sounds to me like youre using dreamweaver or sumfing if youre not able to see anything in xtemplate -theres a section in the drupal handbook about setting up DW to edit xtemplate.

Seriously though it sounds to me like all you have to edit is your css.
Dont know why its not loading maybe the your new copy will solve the problem.
Trust me stay with drupal cause it set for world domination ;) http://drupal-world-domination.com/

http://www.econsultant.co.za

Mahatma’s picture

Hi Kieth ... what editor do you use?

Editing themes takes place in two files, the styles.css in the themes folder and the template file. Have you edited the areas you wanted yet?

It may take a while to get used to where things are but anyone can do it.

kaw’s picture

Thanks for the help and encouragement, folks.

I've found the source of my problem: me!

I was tryhing to change the color of the words in the header, so I went to "header" in styles.css. Now, I learned that I needed to go not to "header" but to "site-name" to do that. (That still doesn't work in this specific case, so I guess I need to keep searching. Anyone know which style controls the words in the the title which is inside the header??

There are styles for dozens of things; I now believe the whole trick is selecting the right thing to change. Is there a good map (or equivalent) which relates each of the many, many, style headings to what they actually change on the template? (A thourough understanding of xtemplate.xtmpl will go a long ways toward this, I suspect.)
* * *
I checked out some to the projects done by econsult. Some were particularly interesting, as they resulted in "conventional" looking layouts. I assume they are all using Drupal. Why would one want to use Drupal for a more-or-less conventional layout?

Thanks for the help! Keith

Steven’s picture

Aside from the standard Drupal HTML, a theme is free to use its own classes and IDs. So there is no real global "map". However, I can advise you to get the Firefox Webdeveloper extension (and the Firefox browser if you don't have it). It allows you to easily dissect a HTML page: you can display classes/id's visually, get style information just by clicking somewhere in the page, and much more.

Alternatively, take a look at the Drupal-generated HTML and dig in.

--
If you have a problem, please search before posting a question.

chx’s picture

For those who prefer Opera to Firefox: Opera also has a webdev toolbar.
--
Read my developer blog on Drupal4hu.

--
Drupal development: making the world better, one patch at a time. | A bedroom without a teddy is like a face without a smile.

Mahatma’s picture

... at the code with an editor. EG - the table will have a style, maybe, and the td will have a style, maybe like this

table class="thistylesheetclassitem" width="100%"
tr
td class="thatstylesheetclassitem"

So if you found the correct style.css in the /themes folder in the folder for the theme you are using, you may very well need to modify the "header" item in the stylesheet, IF the table or td holding the text you want to change has the header item specified for it's class.

IF
td class="header"
text you wanna change is here
/td

then just edit the "header" item in the THEME style.css file. (hint :)
There are many style.css files running around. Edit the one for the theme you are using, usually in the themes/themename folder.

What editor you use, if you don't mind me asking? Dreamweaver? DevPHP?

kaw’s picture

I use Dreamweaver, normally.

Upon Steven's advice, I just picked up Firefox Web Developer but have done no more than play with it a bit. Looks useful!

I'll keep fighting this thing, and with all your help will win!

Thanks again!
Keith

Mahatma’s picture

It just takes time and a lot of mistakes, actually. Just takes time. BTW there is a free php editor called devphp, on sourceforge I think, that is pretty good. I prefer dreamweaver because dw has the upload/dnload features built-in, but devphp is similar in other functions.

You may want to take a look at it if you get time or aren't happy with what you have. The editor makes a lot of difference, to me anyway.

Holler back when you have any other thoughts or questions.

kaw’s picture

I've found several (half a dozen or so) places which could modify my site-name, but none seem to do the job.

My increasing frustration comes in trying to modify the "site-name" in Blue Marine. I've been able to find lots of other things and modify them, but not "site-name."

Interestingly, I can modify the background color of the header, for example, but can't find a way to change the color of the page title (my word), which Web Developer says, as do other things, that Drupal calls "site-name."

I sure hpe this one hang-up doesn't cause me to lose interst and chuck the whole project.

A bit more help, please!
Keith