Couldn't CSS be made easier for non-geeky people to use?!!!

  • Unknown's avatar
    fwordsblog · Member ·

    I have recently bought the CSS upgrade, because I wanted a bigger choice of fonts and I wanted to be able to make changes like changing the colour of headlines, links etc.
    I have to say I am disappointed and despondent by how difficult it is to use. I am not a technical person, and I’m sure most WordPress.com users are not. Despite having followed the tutorials I am still groping my way around, by trial and error, and getting very little further forward.
    The upgrade to CSS takes you from one extreme to the other in terms of usability. It’s possible to get to grips with WordPress.com itself easily without even using the tutorials; but the upgrade to CSS takes us into the realms of rocket science.
    What I find astonishing is that, having developed a system that’s straightforward enough for anyone to use, you make it so difficult for users to take the next step in terms of enhancing the appearance of their blogs. This might be a silly question – as I say, I don’t understand these things – but if we can change the colour, size, style and font of text in Word by clicking on a simple drop-down menu, why isn’t it possible to do the same in WordPress? Why it is necessary to know about HTML and computer coding in order to achieve such a simple change?
    It’s been so disappointing, since I’ve had such fun with WordPress and have found my way round it very nicely until paying for this upgrade. I’m thinking about asking for a refund and sticking with the original appearance, because I’ve clearly bitten off more than I can chew.
    Re colours: The tutorials explain what the codes are for red but then we’re left completely in the dark. I had a certain amount of success in trying Pantone.com colour codes, but that was rather random and I’m sure that’s not what I’m supposed to do. (NB since starting to type this have found a link to a list of hex colours suggested by thesacredpath in the forum, so I’m OK there now, but shouldn’t this info be in the tutorial?).
    And how on earth do I change the colour of links? The word ‘link’ doesn’t even seem to appear in the CSS default style sheet.
    There are loads more things I’d like to tweak, but if I can’t get a handle on something as simple as changing the colour of text, I’m not going to be able to do much else.
    I can’t tell which bit of the style sheet relates to which element of the blog – that’s the basic issue, which I’m having trouble expressing! Why can’t the style sheet be more straightforward? Couldn’t it list all the elements in a more easy-to-understand way? Main page headline, picture caption, link, etc etc. Then have drop-down menus to enable users to change the style on those elements? I don’t understand why this isn’t possible.
    Rant over – I hope this is useful feedback anyway.

    The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)

  • Unknown's avatar
    tandava108 · Member ·

    CSS is difficult because it is general purpose. Could you do more things easily without it? Well yes, some themes let you change heading colours, fonts, etc. and give you options in layout. The thing is if Automatic spent their time doing that they would have to cut somewhere else, it is mostly an advertising supported service. Even if they did you couldn’t do everything you can with CSS, reposition menus and items for example.

    I think they get the balance right at the moment. There are a large number of free themes with different looks and capabilities. Some of these have a lot of theme options. If you want to do something specific the volunteers here on the forums are very helpful and will often tell you exactly what to do to make the change you need.

  • Unknown's avatar
    thesacredpath · Member ·

    The thing is, I’ve worked with some themes for clients on self-hosted sites that have virtually all controls for colors, fonts and such right in the theme options, and it quickly becomes useless and overwhelming. The clients thought, WOOT! I won’t have to pay someone to customize my theme or learn CSS. Two hired me after about a month of trying to find their way around the hundreds of settings and options presented to them.

    The web isn’t MS Word and will probably not be for quite some time.

    If you want to customize your site, post your questions in the CSS forum and we can help. We’ll just start and pick away at things till you have your site looking like what you want.

  • Unknown's avatar
    justjennifer · Member ·

    If you’ve never coded HTML before, CSS can get confusing. How are you going to know that “a” refers to a link and what the heck is a “div” or “body” anyway? I found it helpful to sign up for an online CSS class. Just having the whole thing presented in a structured, step-by-step manner really helped me get a grip on it.

    I took a paid course at LVS, but you can find free resources here:
    http://en.support.wordpress.com/editing-css/#css-help
    Especially http://www.htmldog.com/guides/cssbeginner/

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