Strategy to get started

[matiasasun]

Harlan:

If I´m correct that´s the number Nigel has right?... He´ll give you an answer, but I can guess a couple of things:

a) There are in fact two CSS styles when you look them with Fire Fox. The first one is the "standar" Pbase (called Gallery2.css or something like that) and the other one, that should have a number like the one you described. That´s the one you can modify.

Do you reference one of them as one of your style sheets and the other in the description file?

b) Therefore, that´s the one you work on. If by "reference" you mean select your personal style sheet in the edit page of the gallery you are right. But that´s not done in the description field... I´m not sure if I understand you correctly, so I´m telling this just in case there is a confusion about how to select a stylesheet.


c) Last advice: There are a lot of guys (like me) that have personal style sheets. Some are cool, but the problem is that they are not "correct"; some have code problems, some have extra "classes" from the original pages from they where taken in the first place, etc... So It would be a good idea to use the stylesheets from the guys that like to use Validation Forms, like Nigel, Rob, Arjun, Alan, Webdev.... It is already hard to understand all the codes, it is even harder to understand what is wrong if you don´t even understand them!

Hope this helps you - Take care

[srijith]

When I look at your page source information I notice that you are referencing 2 style sheets: gallery2.css and 37998.css. Have you created both of these? They obviously are doing different things...I'm guessing that they do not compete with each other.

gallery2.css is a PBase defined style sheet. Every account on PBase inherits this automatically. The way stylesheets work, you can include your style in as many files as you like and import them into your HTML document. If there is a clash in any class properties (i,e is say 'h2' is defined in gallery2.css and 37998.css) the way it works is, the browser looks for the defintion of 'h2' that is nearest to the placement of 'h2'. Since gallery2.css is imported before your custom sheet (37998.css), for almost every class defintions, the defintions in your custom sheet dominates the definition in gallery2.css

Some might ask, why include gallery2.css at all? Isnt it a waste of bandwidth. Frankly - it is, *if* you are very sure you have all the class and ids defined in your custom stylesheet. If you dont include gallery2.css and you miss one id or class, the browser will not know how to render the class and just render it without any special style.

Think of gallery2.css as a 'catch-all'. If you dont define an id in your custom sheet, the definitions in gallery2.css is taken. If you have your own defintion, that is accepted.

Hope that clears things up.

[matiasasun]

Well.. looks like I guess correctly. Another guy you can check his Stylesheet is Srijith here.

[srijith]

Well.. looks like I guess correctly. Another guy you can check his Stylesheet is Srijith here.

Thanks Matias. I have to confess though that I have used a lot of CSS codes from Pim Rijpsma (webdev)

[harlanlampert]

You guys are so exceptionally helpful! I REALLY appreciate it and am becoming more confident that my trial and error work will actually bear some good fruit.

But, I'm having an ethical dilemma...how much cribbing from someone else is socially acceptable here. I know it doesn't matter for my viewers, but I'm loathe to step on toes of those who have been so supportive and helpful.

Thanks, Harlan

[dpnew]

If you want to really learn this stuff, first you have to learn hmtl (or more properly 'xhtml'). xhtml is what determines the general layout of a web page. It's the big picutre. The good news is that you can learn the basics in a few hours--and 'links' are an area you should definitely explore.

Second, you need to learn css style sheets. css determines the styling of the different html elements. Once again you can learn the basics in a few days, but as the complexity of what you want to do grows, you will have to learn more and more. Trying to create something complex right from the start is going to lead to a lot of frustration.

I suggest you get a basic book on xhtml and css style sheets, and start slowly. If you enjoy it, then the sky is the limit on how much you can learn.

You keep mentioning the 'description'. Generally, you are stuck with the html that pbase uses to layout the pages. In the 'description' for your gallery, pbase does allow you to add some html to the top of the gallery pages, so you can change that portion of the page. If you were creating your own web page, things would be much more flexible, and you could add or delete as much of the html as you wanted.

In fact, you can create a web page on your own computer to practice. If you open up a text editor like Notepad, and create some html, then type in a file name and add a .htm extension to it, you will have your own web page. To see the web page you created, just click on the file icon and it should launch in your browser. If you want to edit the html, it's a little trickier. Normally, when you click on a file, it opens up and you can edit it. An .htm file is a little different because when you click on it, it launches in your browser and you see the web page and not the source code. To access the source code so you can edit it, open up Notepad and click on File>Open and then choose the .htm file. Then, the file will open as a text file that you can edit instead of launching in your browser.

Using .htm files on your computer to create your own web pages is a good way to learn html and css style sheets. I would recommend you do that rather than trying to slog your way through the pbase style sheets.