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Making Template Changes


shelwriter

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Woo-Hoo!! I can't believe I remember how to do some things. I actually got a wordpress theme uploaded and unpacked into my cpanel in the right place. Amazing!!

 

I need to change some things on my theme template and I read in the WordPress Codex about setting permissions. I did that in Cpanel, but I can't get the theme to save my changes in the theme manager.

 

I don't know anything about CSS but I can kinda figure out what number is the header box height/width, etc. When I go to make those changes in the header that I changed permissions to groups writable (per Codex) it won't allow me to save it.

 

What am I doing wrong??

 

**I am going to be on here a LOT in the upcoming months.... sorry! :tchrocks:

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You would have to change the files to permissions 666 for the theme manager to write the files. I don't recommend that and don't do it that way myself. I make the changes on my own computer and upload them with an FTP client.

 

To edit the CSS I recommend using Firefox and the Web Developer Toolbar extension. It allows you to make changes to the CSS and see the results in real time on the server. Then you save the CSS file to your computer and upload it to the theme folder using FTP for everyone else to use.

 

If you use the FireFTP extension you can even upload it to the server without ever leaving your browser.

 

Hope that helps.

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Hi Bruce -

 

I'm sorry I had this posted in the wrong place. Thank you for moving it.

 

I think I understand what you are saying.... TCH - Thomas had said this to me in another post:

If you know a little css you will have no problem with this either.

If you use Firefox, you can install an extension called Web Developer Toolbar (chrispederick.com/work/web-developer/).

With this toolbar you can mark the header for example and it will show you where in the css to modify things for your header. Do your changes right in your browser, save it to your computer and upload it to the folder which contains the css file to overwrite it.

Don´t forget to always have the themes original css file stored on your computer if something goes wrong.

I believe you are both talking about the same thing... I think. :) Is this correct??? Is there another way to make template changes - or am I really going to have to learn CSS??

 

I'll go back and change my permissions back to original and download this toolbar and try it out tonight. Lord willing I won't kill everything... LOL Thank you!!!!

 

Also - - is there a particular webmail that you guys use/recommend? Horde? SquirrelMail? I'm having trouble setting up my domain email through my outlook. We're using Vista, so I'm thinking it won't work. There were no set up files for Vista.

 

:tchrocks:

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The choice of webmail is mostly a matter of which you like.

 

As for setting up your email in Outlook, have a look at this page. :tchrocks:

 

Thank you, Thomas! I see what I was doing wrong. I'll do this later... :)

 

Uhm, I installed FireFox - and downloaded that toolbar thingy. And went to my page and clicked on the little css section and clicked on "edit css" and a box came up and it showed my page in css format. Wheee!

 

And - well - I don't know what to do next! I think I'm screwed! LOL Royally screwed. I don't know a thing about css and editing this looks scary.

 

Anyway - I'll research and figure somethings out - in the meantime - I don't really understand what I'm supposed to do. This is what I THINK I'm supposed to do. I'm supposed to use that css sheet, make changes where necessary, click on that little save icon - save it to my computer - then ftp it to my cpanel file, where necessary. Right?????????????

 

Sorry for being a PITA. It's just been so long since I've done this and I'm more than extremely lost.

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And - well - I don't know what to do next!

After that (while still have the "edit css" open), in the same "css" menu, chose "View style information".

Now when you hover your mouse over your site, a red square shows up.

Hover over your logo for example, then click on the logo, so your logo gets kind of marked with that red square.

Now the css part that controls the logo part will show up in the lower part of your Firefox window and you can see which part to edit.

Then go back to the tab saying "edit css" (lower part of your Firefox window) and make a change in the logo section.

Your change(s) should show up instantly and if it looks like you want, save the new css file to your computer and upload it to where your "old" css file is.

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After that (while still have the "edit css" open), in the same "css" menu, chose "View style information".

Now when you hover your mouse over your site, a red square shows up.

Hover over your logo for example, then click on the logo, so your logo gets kind of marked with that red square.

Now the css part that controls the logo part will show up in the lower part of your Firefox window and you can see which part to edit.

Then go back to the tab saying "edit css" (lower part of your Firefox window) and make a change in the logo section.

Your change(s) should show up instantly and if it looks like you want, save the new css file to your computer and upload it to where your "old" css file is.

 

Whew - ok. I'll try that. I'll have to refer to your instructions as I do it though! :P Thank you guys for your time, assistance and patience with me.

 

Okay, I have another question. . . Hopefully it's the last one for at least a day or two. :)

 

I don't know what I've done - but I don't think I've done anything at all - but my pages that I'm creating on my WP site aren't showing up.

I actually changed the templates today to see if it was an issue with the template that I had uploaded - and it's not. I get a 404 error when I go to the "About FollowAWriter" page and the "A Writer's Arsenal" page. My website is www.followawriter.com

 

Do you guys have a clue what I could look for or check on and where to check for a problem?????? As I said, I did change templates today and still had the same issue so I don't believe it's the template itself that's the issue.

 

Again, bless you guys!!! :tchrocks: :tchrocks:

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That's going to be difficult without a link. But a place to start is did you turn on permalinks in the admin section? If so turn them off and see if you are still getting the error.

 

:) :tchrocks: :tchrocks: :P

I did as you said and changed my permalinks back to default. And now you can see my pages!!! You are AWESOME!!!!!!!

Uhm - so that means I can't change my permalinks at all???

 

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!!!

 

:tchrocks:

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In notepad paste what WP says in the permalinks section, name this file .htaccess.txt (note the dot at the beginning) then upload it to your public_html and rename it to .htaccess (ie remove the .txt part). :)

 

Gosh - that doesn't sound too bad. Okay, I think I can handle that. Thank you!!!!!!

 

Apparently I can't stop asking questions. . . Sorry! Thank you guys for all your help. I'm sure I'll be back on later tonight or tomorrow with more questions. LOL :tchrocks:

Edited by shelwriter
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