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verview
Styles, chosen and edited in Style view, affect the appearance of the entire site. Thus, changes made to the Style must be done very carefully.
The style determines what banner is used at the top of the page and what images are used as buttons in navigation bars. The style also determines the different text types and fonts used in the site.
It is very unlikely that you will need to edit the style. In fact, there are a number of reasons why you shouldn’t touch the style:
- As mentioned, changing the style will change the entire site
- It’s rather complicated to update the changed style with NetObjects and SourceSafe -- you have to be very careful
- Editing the style in NetObjects is buggy and error-prone: there’s a good chance that you’ll corrupt the style
- Other users who do not realize that the style has changed may make changes to the site based on the old style, not the new
- In short, there’s guarenteed to be a lot of confusion
Of course, if you absolutely have to change the SLAC style (used in the ARDA website), there is a way to do it. It’s just that NetObjects will make your life difficult during the process. The primary difficulties are that styles are saved on your local machine, and the NetObjects implementation (version MX) of style editing has at least one serious bug.
Style View
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Button or tab
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Description
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 New Style
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Create a new style
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 Online Styles
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Download new styles from the NetObjecsts website
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 Set Style
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Set the selected style as the site’s style
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Graphic tab
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View and edit the graphically elements of the style
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Text tab
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View the font and text-based elements of the style
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Loading an updated SLAC style
This is for when you realize that the SLAC style has changed, but you are still using an older version of the style. Possible tipoffs include (1) the ARDA website’s text, buttons, or banners look different from yours and (2) the navigation bars or buttons are out of alignment without you having touched them.
- As directed in General Procedures, before editing you have gotten the latest version of the ARDA_WEBSITE folder. This ensures that you have the latest version of the site template, images, and styles.
- Open “ARDA Website Template.nft,” and go to Style view.
- On the left under the Graphic tab is a list of available styles. If you scroll down, you should see the SLAC style. We want to reload this style.
- To reload, we have to remove the style entirely, then add it again. However, NetObjects won’t let us remove the SLAC style because it is the currently selected style. We need to set some other style as the current style first. So select any other style on the list besides SLAC, then click Set Style in the main toolbar.
- Now we remove the SLAC style. Select the SLAC style in the list (but don’t click Set Style), then choose Style->Remove Style from List from the menubar. Confirm the removal, and the SLAC style will be deleted.
- Now for the reload. Still in Style view, choose Style->Add Local Style to List... Navigate to your working folder. Open it, then open the folder Styles, then open the folder Slac. You should now see the file “Style.ssx.”
- Open “Style.ssx,” and the SLAC style again appears in the style list. Select it, then click Set Style in the main toolbar.
Editing a Style
I hope you read the warnings in the Overview. I won’t go in depth on editing styles, other than to point a few things out. Please read all the notes before you start editing the SLAC style.
- Check out Style.ssx from SourceSafe, plus any image files you plan on editing.
- All style editing is done in Style view
- To change an image, such as the image for a button, double-click on the button in the main window of Style view. A dialogue box will appear prompting you to open the new image for the button (or banner or whatever).
- Caveat for step 2: never ever ever load an image from the NetObjects folder on your local drive. The path to the forbidden folder should be C:\NetObjects Fusion MX; don’t load an image from this folder or any subfolder within. If you do, the style will be corrupted, and you will have to reload the style as explained above. WARNING: when you try to change an image, the dialogue box will always start you in C:\NetObjects Fusion MX\Styles\Slac\Images. Don’t ever load an image from here. This is the bug I mentioned in the Overview.
- Save any new images used in the changed style in [your working folder]\Styles\Slac\Images. Load images for step 2 from this folder too.
- To start editing text styles, go to Style->Edit Text Styles in the menubar.
Updating the style in SourceSafe
Here’s the complication: instead of changing Style.ssx in your working folder, NetObjects stores the changed Style.ssx on the local drive, at C:\NetObjects Fusion MX\Styles\Slac. This is the only file you need to worry about since you’ve been good and have been saving new image files in [your working folder]\Styles\Slac\Images. Remember that SourceSafe only updates files found in your working folder.
- Make sure your changed Style.ssx is not corrupt, i.e. all the buttons, banners, and text of SLAC style appear in NetObjects Style view.
- Save your work and exit NetObjects.
- Navigate to C:\NetOBjects Fusion MX\Styles\Slac in Windows. You should see a file called Style.ssx. You need to copy this file to [your working folder]\Styles\Slac, overwriting the Style.ssx located there.
- Check in Style.ssx. Don’t forget to add to SourceSafe any new images used in the changed style; add to ARDA_WEBSITE\Styles\Slac\Images.
- Tell all other ARDA web developers ASAP about the changed style so that they can update to the changed style.
Next topic: Assets
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