CSS wizard - Stylesheets made easy!
Writing stylesheets can be daunting for those who aren't used to them, which is why we've created the CSS wizard to help you
get started!
The CSS wizard allows you to quickly and easily try out new styles and see what they'll look like, without having to write a
single line of code! Simply select from the available options, then select 'Preview' to see the result. You can go back and
keep changing the options until you're happy, then open your administration page and copy the code across.
Once you've got your basic stylesheet saved, you can then concentrate on more advanced styles - most of the hard work will
be done for you! A lot of the options in the wizard have a 'Custom' setting, so you can try new things out without
disturbing your guestbook.
When you're happy with the style
Adding the style information to your guestbook is easy - just click on the "Show Code" button, copy all of the text in the
window, and paste it into the "Edit CSS" form in the administration area. Once you've saved it, open your guestbook and all
of the styling should be there!
Click here to open the CSS wizard
Some tips
- Turn on borders for everything (at least to begin with)
- This will make it easy to see where each bit starts and ends. You can always turn
the borders off when you've finished.
- Don't be afraid to try something new
- The output from the CSS wizard isn't copied to your guestbook unless you want it to
be. Build a basic style you're happy with and upload it - people can then read your
guestbook while you go wild!
Specifying colours on the Internet is slightly more tricky. Although there are some standard colour names defined, you'll
quickly get bored with them and want to make your own, but the method of specifying them is a bit technical.
If you've used professional graphics programs before, you may already be familiar with the 'HTML' or 'RGB' method of
specifying colours. Colours are written in hexadecimal RGB format - for example, red would be #FF0000, green would be
#00FF00 and blue would be #0000FF.
If that seems too much like hard work, help is at hand! There's plenty of software out there that can help you to pick
colours, and we're looking to add a colour picker to the wizard soon. In the meantime, we suggest you download this
excellent piece of software to help you: RGB Mixer
It's small, free, and doesn't contain any nasty spyware or adware. Three simple sliders to select the colour, and it'll
even copy it to the clipboard for you.
Sizes can be written in different ways, depending on what they're describing. For text, sizes are specified either in pixels
(px) or points (pt). Specifying text sizes in pixels means you know exactly how big each character is going to be, but this
may make text difficult to read on larger displays. Specifying text sizes in points means the text will look better on larger
displays, but may look a different size on different platforms/browsers.
Widths, margins, and padding can be specified as pixels (px) or percentages (%). The advantage with pixels is that you know
exactly how much room you're going to leave, whereas percentages work on the size of the window. Percentages allow you to
make sure that your guestbook looks roughly the same on all screen sizes - bigger screens won't have lots of empty space,
smaller screens won't have massive scoll bars.