Want to Modify Your WordPress Theme?
Miss Expatria said she liked Blog from Italy’s new look, so I thought I’d write and tell you about two tools which I use to help me tinker with the ’styling’ of this site.
If all you want to do is change some of the cascading style sheet stuff, in terms of colours and text sizes etc, then you will find having the FireFox browser really useful.
Why? Mainly because you can add these two very useful free plugin or extension programs. (You may need to check that the extensions I am about to mention will work with the brand new FireFox 3.X, before installing the latest version of FireFox.):
- ColorZilla - wonderful! You can select the colour you want using a little crosshair, and this great program will give you the code you need to slot into a css file - something like this: #E5E5E5 or E5E5E5, which is the grey colour from the WordPress admin ’save and publish’ buttons. You need to use the ‘#’ before the ‘hexadecimal’ number in a cascading style sheet file, or you can just write ‘gray’ (note the US spelling). I find ColorZilla’ invaluable.
- Web Developer - is another extremely useful, if somewhat more complex FireFox extension. For this tinkerer, I find the Web Developer > CSS > View Style Information menu item essential. Why? Quite simply because it allows me to find which part of a .css file I need to adjust to suit my own needs. When you select View Style Information from the menu, you end up with a little crosshair, which you can then use to find information about the .css item you need to change. It will tell you, via a red bordered box and info in the browser top bar, the name of the <div> or the item you need to change. This means you can find it within the .css file, and tweak it. Wonderful!
If you don’t know what a <div> is, then do not tinker! Even if you do know what a <div> is, don’t go making changes without having ensured that you have a copy of the original .css file in a safe place.
Once you have these tools, you can change text styles and colours easily, and personalise you blog’s look.
If you want to go deeper, then you need to play with things offline, otherwise, you may KO your site!
Have fun! But take care.
Fixed It!
I wanted to switch the commenting system off on one of my posts, so I did. The only trouble was the side effect. The right hand side bar took umbridge and slid down to beneath the central column, which you are reading now.
After posting on the Wordpress support forums, someone suggested that there was a missing opening or closing <div> - a technical web design thing (divs come in pairs - one opens and then there should be another that closes). Luckily I know what these things are, and, more or less, what they do (div = divider), so I set about hunting down the errant piece of HTML. At first, despite my best efforts, I could not track the blasted thing down. Really annoying, I can tell you.
Well, I’m pleased to say that during a quiet moment today I managed to compare the code used in this site with the original code developed by one Brian Gardener, and, I spotted the error, and corrected it. Now I can turn the comment system off and on and the side bar does not become all grumpy. Something of a relief.
And who was to blame for the error? Yep, you guessed: it was tinkering little old me. I had inserted Google Analytics code and inadvertently erased a <div> tag. Twit. Oh well, you live and learn. I shall be more careful next time.
Still, all the hunting around gave me more of an idea as to how these Wordpress pages are created. Very interesting. Did you know that you are not looking at one HTML page, but four bits of HTML all stitched together courtesy of the magic of PHP? Very clever stuff.
The sausage saga sizzles on
As I write, two super sausage sourcers, Liz and Claire from Lingo Design, are doing their level best to ensure that good old British bangers wend their way to Milan in time for the launch of the 4-4-2s full English breakfast, theoretically in little more than one week!
So, big thanks to Liz and Claire for their admirable attempts to ensure that a decent breakfast will be served up! Cheers!
If you are ever in Milan, the beers on me! And the sausages! 
Note for your diary - 6th December - Design Museum Opens in Milan
Apparently, on the 6th of December a new museum of Italian Design will open in Milan. The only trouble is that I cannot find the address! I’m not sure whether the new design museum will be located near Parco Sempione close to the city centre, or out in the Bovisa area of Milan.
When I do manage to pin down the exact location, I will post it here.
Why bother visiting an Italian design museum? Easy. Italian design is about as innovative as design gets. And Milan is filled with shops showing off what Italian designers can do. There are spectacular kitchens, brilliant bathrooms and intriguing bathroom fittings, and then there is the fabulous furniture. Not to mention all the ornaments, lights, kitchenware and a host of other stuff.
I shall be writing about various examples in future posts.
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