Building own CSS (and not on a theme)
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Hi there,
I’m just getting started writing my own CSS code, and I’m having trouble getting wordpress to not build upon a specific theme and just take my code. I have it set to default theme, and have selected the “Don’t build upon a theme, just use this” option, and yet wordpress seems to just love showing the other theme underneath what I’m writing. How do I get rid of this?
Thanks!
Nina
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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CSS is theme specific. Each designer decides what they are going to call their selectors (ID’s and classes). To apply CSS to any theme, you have to start with the CSS for that particular theme, see how all the selectors relate to the markup (HTML) and then go from there.
If you want to start from scratch, then start with Sandbox which has absolutely NO CSS. Again, you will have to dig through the markup to see what ID’s and classes are used for what page elements and then build your CSS.
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Sorry but you failed to post the URL for the blog in question starting with http:// and we need the URL so please post it.
If you are referring to a free hosted wordpress.COM blog then the only themes we can use are here > Appearance > Themes. There is a theme called Sandbox that you can create a skin for and any other of the 95 themes can be CSS edited provided you purchase the annually renewable upgrade.
If you have CSS editing experience, you can get the paid custom CSS upgrade and renew it annually. It will allow you to stylize the appearance of themes you find here > Appearance > Themes, but it does not allow you to change the functionality, by editing the underlying template. Also note that CSS is theme specific, so you cannot use the CSS stylesheets from other themes with the themes here at wordpress.COM.
Since there is no official Staff support for the CSS upgrade, and precious little Volunteer support, I recommend that you don’t buy the upgrade unless you have at least moderate understanding of HTML and CSS because you must be prepared to do the work on your own.
If you are considering purchasing the upgrade, you can go to Appearance > Edit CSS. There wordpress has provided a preview function where you can try before you buy.
http://en.support.wordpress.com/custom-css/
http://en.support.wordpress.com/editing-css/If you are considering purchasing the upgrade then please read this post > http://csswiz.wordpress.com/2009/10/15/if-you-have-the-wp-com-css-upgrade/
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Also, if there is no underlying theme, then there is nothing for the CSS to be applied to. There has to be a theme structure.
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Thanks for your replies. I do know HTML and have moderate knowledge of CSS but I’m figuring it out real fast. It’s not particularly difficult for what I want to do. I have a purchased upgrade to write my own code.
I’m going to guess that by theme structure, you mean that whatever code I add has to be built on top of an existing theme structure. This is fine as I have found some that, when edited, allow me to make the design I have in mind. However, I would very much like to get rid of the “This theme is called X and was developed by Y”…that’s all great, but I’m changing most of the code here!
So, in short: I have a design in mind, I know CSS. What is the best theme to build off of that would give me a lot of default/customizable options?
Thanks.
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@loveollie
Please post the complete and clickable URL for the blog you refer to starting with http:// as I previously asked you above. Once you do that we can answer your specific questions.P.S. With regard to removing the attribution link to the web designer who created the theme doing so is unethical. You would be building on the structure they provided and all you are doing is “styling” a theme.
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As timethief says, we REALLY need a link to the blog. The difference between what can be done at wordpress.COM vs what can be done with a self-hosted wordpress blog is considerable.
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As thesacredpath and timethief mentioned earlier there are a number of “Sandbox” themes that contain minimal styling but maximum ID and class attributes for you to pin your CSS to. If you click on my name beside this post you can see what I have done building upon the most recent Sandbox theme which is 1.6.1 if I remember correctly. Unless one of the other themes is already extremely close to what you imagine your finished design looking like then Sandbox is definitely the theme to go for. It was designed for just this purpose.
lh
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oops…so sorry. Thank you guys!
http://ninavyedin.wordpress.com
I haven’t done much on it, but as you can see I’m trying to basically combine themes at the moment….
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I’ll wait for your feedback, then I actually have some specific questions to ask. Thank you so much for your help! CSS is a lot of fun, but I definitely need some problem-solving guidance.
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Now we can see your blog feel free to ask specific questions and we’ll see if we can help.
lh
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Additionally, If you wish, you can also take a look at some of the Sandbox skins I have; although I’m not styling every possible element, maybe they can serve you as a point of reference.
http://sandboxskins.wordpress.com/category/customcss/
Also here
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Okay, first question for you rockstars.
I would like all my links to come up in the sidebar. They currently show up in the sidebar (my own code) and at the top (theme template) How do I get rid of the top links so that they only show up in the sidebar?
Thanks,
N -
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Get yourself a copy of the firefox web browser if you’re not already using it then download the firebug and the web developer toolbar extensions. Then you can easily hop around the CSS looking for the bits you need. In this case it is:
#menu {display:none;}lh
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Use a “base theme” that doesn’t have topline navigation. That’s the easiest way. There are multiple versions of Sandbox for just this reason.
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