Hi,

When I use the default XOOPS theme, the blocks overlap in older versions of IE (prior to 6.0). From what I've read, this is some kind of CSS problem.

I replaced the default theme with the 7dana-jane theme, and this stopped the overlapping. However, there are a couple of changes that I want to make to the 7dana-jane theme.

Here they are:

1) Expand the width of the entire web page, so that the web page fills the entire browser window. Since I have a lot of content in the left, center, and right columns, the narrow width of the 7dana-jane theme is kind of restrictive. Is there any way to expand the page width, without running into the overlap problems again? If so, where do I change this and in what way?

2) I want to use slightly darker colors for the forum background, similar to the default XOOPS theme forum colors. Where do I change these colors? Also, is there any way to replace the forum 7dana-jane forum theme colors with the default XOOPS forum theme colors, without changing the rest of the site's theme?

One other question. Are there more themes out there that avoid the block overlapping problem with old browsers? So far, 7dana-jane themes seem to be the only themes that avoid this issue. However, I would like to provide more options for themes.

Thanks for any suggestions,
Dave

personally, less than 1% of my visitors use ie 5.5 or 5.0 so, i would recommend they upgrade. there is an ie 5.5 css fix that can be included in css but i do not even consider using it anymore.

Hi Dave,

Changing width of the theme is fairly simple.

In style.css

Change following:

from


to



the defs to look at in style.css which control the over all look and feel of table rows for your entire site are called:

outer
head
even
odd
tr.even td
tr.odd td


Easiest way to determine what styles are assigned to page content on your site is to copy out the source of the page. Paste that code into a visual editor like Dreamweaver or GoLive then select rows and see what's assigned. (that's how I do it)

Keeping in mind that changing these style defs effects any modules you would install, or the default ones, on your site that also use those style defs. So you would be changing the entire site not just the Forum as you desire.

I have not looked at this particular style sheet in depth but it's very similiar to the others produced by 7Dana.com... each is very good cross browser.

regards
rocket98

Hi tjnemez,

I'm sure that the old browser issues will become even less of an issue over time (as IE 5 and 5.5 gradually become extinct). It seems that Internet Explorer itself may be become less popular over time, due to security issues and competitive browsers such as Opera and Firefox. Although, only time will tell regarding that.

As you suggested, I'm tempted to just recommend that visitors update their IE to 6.0 (which will give me more flexibility with themes). However, I worry about the small percentage of people who don't upgrade too often, and who will be turned away if my site looks like a mess (because of an IE issue).

Where would I find that css fix?

Dave

Hi rocket98,

Thanks for the tips. I was able to successfully change most of color settings with the defs you mentioned. However, I could not locate the "outer" def in the style.css for the theme I'm using. It is referenced in the rendered page's source code, but I don't see it in the css for some reason.

Does the "outer" def reference the colors for the "category title" for each category of forums? I'm asking this, since that is the only color that has not changed (after changing the color settings for: head, even, odd, tr.even td, tr.odd td). Thus, I'm assuming that "outer" is not used for that particular theme (maybe something else is referenced for the forum category background colors).

Dave

your assumption was correct. The default templates create tables with the class 'outer' as a hook for styling, but it is up to the theme designer if they want to style it at all. Usually what I do, when designing a theme is add an empty style to my sheet:

This way users that want to customize my theme know that the class does exist, but not styled.