So thanks to some of the links provided here, I created a new website for our company. Nvu is a great program and that website with all the templates was helpful as well. I picked what I thought was the cleanest and most "business looking" template and started there.

Here is what I've got so far

I'm figuring a lot of this stuff out as I go and the whole thing has been a great learning experience. However, there are a couple of things I'm trying to do that I just can't seem to figure out. I'm hoping you guys can give me some pointers.

I think mainly, my issues have to do with the CSS file (which I am slowly learning about). Here are the current items on my to do list that I'm having trouble with:

1) I'm trying to move the big green box to the right a little bit. I want to do this so that the links to the left of the box can be longer. Right now, if the name of the link gets too long, it overlaps onto the next line and looks pretty crappy.

2) My second problem has to do with the light grey area in the center (the area with the links and green box). I'm having a problem with this page. Under Services, I've included 3 different subsections each of which have links. Each time I add a link, it obviously moves everything down. The problem is, there is a link after "CONTACT US", but I can't get it to show because the light grey area is too small.

3) This is a general question. I realize that each page is supposed to reference style.css. However, what if a certain page has slightly different needs than another. For example, what if, for one of my pages, I dont want it to use that big green box, but instead, a picture or a flash animation or something? That top area all seems a part of the CSS file. So do I have to have a different CSS file for that one page?

4) My last question (for now) is about the style.css file itself and editing it. Nvu has this thing called CSS Editor under Tools. I guess its the GUI way to edit the CSS file. Before I posted here, I played with the CSS file in the editor and found the paramters or rules I had to change to fix 1 and 2 above. For example, the first issue was fixed by finding the rules for the green box and additing a margin. The second issue was a similiar fix. The big grey area has different parameters and I changed one of them to give the grey area a Padding of 15pt. When I preview, I see that those changes get me the look I want. However, when I publish, my changes aren't showing up.

It doesn't actually save the changes I'm making to the CSS file. Nvu's CSS editor seems to be referencing the correct CSS file. Under Sheets and Rules, it references http://www.calschools.com/style.css. Shouldn't it be saving the changes I make?

The problem is, the rules are easy to change in Nvu editor, but I have no idea what I'm doing with the actual CSS file. I've opened it up in wordpad and I have a vague idea of what is going on but I can't figure out how to make the changes that I made in Nvu through the editor.

In general, I'd like to know if what I'm trying to do is too complicated. Should I try to find a different template? I'm pretty happy with what I've got so far and really these issues I'm having are pretty minor. I'm more interested in figuring out the answer to #4 above because I'm slowly figuring out how to work with the CSS file in Nvu, but I just can't seem to get the changes to stick.

I've attached a screenshot of the CSS Editor in Nvu. I've also attached the actual CSS file. Any help would be greatly appreciated.


Attachments
296206-CSSEditor.JPG (76 downloads)



Edited by visuvius (19/03/2007 22:07)