Site Design, the Easy Way
There are several ways to make your life easier whilst having fun with HTML markup and CSS design.
Learning, the fun way
When I first tinkered around with HTML and CSS, I was a bit unsure and un-inspired as to what to do, but I employed a technique that some may frown upon. Using a variety of tools, I took a peek at stylesheets that had produced something I like. I didn't steal them but rather learnt from them on how to do such and such a thing. I would recommend trying this out as it is a hands on way to learn what various bits of CSS code do - and its much nicer to see it in action done the right way.
Sidebar Panels
If you use Mozilla/Firefox as your browser, you are in luck. EditCSS and Web Developer are two tools that I rely on everyday. Both allow for real-time editing of stylesheets. It will pop open the sidebar (in a similar fashion to MT Tabs) and it will contain the css - changing it will show you, in real time, how it will look!
Other great sidebar tools (Netscape also supports this) can be found on the DevEdge site. I use the CSS and HTML sidebars -- these are exactly the same as MT Tabs except for CSS and HTML respectively. They contain a list of codes for CSS/HTML and it links to the appropriate docs, very useful.
Splitting up your site
When designing sites, this is the first thing I do. I usually split my sites up into four separate files: the Header, the Footer, the Sidebar and the main content. How does this help? If you split up your site, it means that if you need to make a small change, you don't have to repeat it over many different templates. For example, the header of Movalog (the banner and tabs) are in a separate file and that file is included into all my templates. This means that if I wanted to add a new tab, I would just need to modify my header file and nothing more!
You can either use Index Templates or Template Modules (I use the latter). I have three template modules, header, footer and sidebar. These templates produce static files (I have a file name entered in "Link this template to file") and these static files are included into all my templates using a bit of PHP code
<?php include("header.php"); ?>Why not use an MTInclude tag? If I used the MTInclude tag, every time I changed my template module I would need to rebuild all files the template module was included in.
Useful Links
Whilst doing your designing, you may find the following links very useful
Creating a Horizontal Navigation Bar
Colours, Backgrounds, Banners, Headlines and Fonts
Listmatic - Horizontal and Vertical Navigation Menus
BlogPlates
CSS Zen Garden
4 Comments
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didak said:
on Nov 17, 2004 6:46 PM | Reply
Arvind- I have come across a problem that seems SO SIMPLE to fix, and yet, I am again very puzzled as to why I can't. Have searched support forums, and can't seem to find the answer. Am hoping you can help me out.
Here's the sit: I have a main domain where MT is loaded:publichtml/mt. I am now creating another blog in publichtml/svmw. I want to use a different style sheet for the second blog. But, the MTBlogURL tag keeps pointing to the style sheet in public_html, not the one in svmw despite the fact that it DOES exist in the svmw folder. I tried fiddling many ways with the css line in index.php file, but just can't get it to work. Any clues?
Also, have you ever had a problm with redirects and configuring your blog's URL? I'm needing some help in that area too, if you're willing. ;~>
TIA! Dida
Arvind Satyanarayan said:
on Nov 17, 2004 6:57 PM | Reply
For the first problem check the site paths you have specified in Weblog Config. I don't quite understand what you mean with your second query.
Ivan said:
on Jan 23, 2006 7:47 AM | Reply
But, to do this in all blogs, is too much
The best solution, would be to modify the default templates, and include a header and a footer file, for default, for all new blogs
Doug said:
on Jun 6, 2006 8:35 PM | Reply
Hi, I tried this solution since when I design I like to check every little change I make, but something weird is happening: every time I try to include the files using php, MT doesn't render the files and I can see all of the Mt tags. I'm using Mt 3.2 and I have the module lnked to a template. Any ideas?
D