My 0.02$ on Opera Community development

published by Ivan Minic

Redesigning My.Opera space, blog and photo gallery in X easy steps [Part 3]

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[Repeating the usual stuff] Important: All tweaks and changes here are made on default template. Should work ok with any other, but will work 100% ok with default theme. Definitions: All definitions used here are from W3schools CSS guide Examples: All I show here is there just to represent variety of possible options. It is not intended to look good, just too look as different from the other ones as possible. Where do I start? 1. Go to Preferences (http://my.opera.com/Username/account/) 2. Then go to Web page layout (http://my.opera.com/Username/account/layout.dml) 3. Then go to custom style sheet (http://my.opera.com/Username/account/usercss.dml) Ok, I'm there... Now? In Enter CSS: field enter some of the values I will explain below, and make sure you select Use my custom style sheet together with the current theme before clicking Save [Repeating ends here] Sidebar on My.Opera Blog Sidebar, Album slideshow, Calendar, etc Sidebar width If we take a look into main.css of default theme we will spot that there is a part about Sidebar width. I'm copying it and explaining it:

#sidewrap { width:190px; float:right; font-size:11px; overflow:hidden; }

And to explain it line by line: width:190px - The width property sets the width of an element. In this case width of title is 190px, and that means that it will be. You can see examples of width usage here, and learn more on CSS dimensions here. float:right; - The image or text moves to the right in the parent element. You can read more about CSS float property here. font-size:11px - Font-size sets the size of a font. In this case font size is set in pixels, and to be exact 11pixels. More about fonts and font size here. overflow:hidden - The overflow property sets what happens if the content of an element overflow its area. Hidden means that the content is clipped, but the browser does not display a scroll-bar to see the rest of the content. You can see examples of overflow usage here. So what can I do? I will from now on make 4 examples for you and at the end you will be able to see how each of them looks: Example 1: :

#sidewrap { width:190px; float:right; font-size:14px; color:#666699; overflow:hidden; }

Example 2:

#sidewrap { width:190px; float:center; font-family:'Trebuchet MS',arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size:11px; overflow:hidden; }

Example 3:

#sidewrap { width:190px; float:left; font-family:'Impact',arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size:11px; overflow:hidden; }

Example 4:

#sidewrap { width:190px; float:right; font-size:11px; font-family:'Georgia',arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-style: italic; overflow:hidden; }

Sidebar captions If we take a look into main.css of default theme we will spot that there is a part about Sidebar captions. I'm copying it and explaining it:

#side h2, #side caption { color:#fff; background:#3b649c; font-size:10px; font-weight:normal; text-transform:uppercase; text-align:left; margin:0 0 1px 0; padding:2px 0 2px 5px; }

And to explain it line by line: color:#fff; - The color property sets the color of a text.. In this case color used is this[/url]. More about color proprety you can read here background:#3b649c; - The CSS background properties define the background effects of an element. Elements are already explained above. More on this topic here.. font-size:10px - Font-size sets the size of a font. In this case font size is set in pixels, and to be exact 10pixels. More about fonts and font size here. You can read more about font-weight here. font-weight:normal;- The font-weight property sets how thick or thin characters in text should be displayed. text-transform:uppercase; - The text-transform property controls the letters in an element.. This is new text property for us. Uppercase means that all text no matter how you type it will be shown in ALLCAPS. More about text-transform usage here. text-align:left;- The text-align property aligns the text in an element.. Read more about text-align here margin:0 0 1px 0- The CSS margin properties define the space around elements. In this case margin is 0 0 1px 0 (top, right, bottom, left). You can see examples of margin usage here and get detailed info on CSS margin here padding:2px 0 2px 5px; - The CSS padding properties define the space between the element border and the element content.. In this case space is 2px 0 2px 5px; (order is top, right, bottom, left). More about CSS padding here So what can I do? I will from now on make 4 examples for you and at the end you will be able to see how each of them looks: Example 1: :

#side h2, #side caption { color:#CC3300; background:#008000; font-size:12px; font-weight:normal; text-align:left; margin:0 0 1px 0; padding:2px 0 2px 5px; }

[/FONT][/QUOTE] Example 2:

#side h2, #side caption { color:#fff; background:#CC3300; font-size:20px; font-weight:normal; text-transform:uppercase; text-align:left; margin:0 0 1px 0; padding:2px 0 2px 5px; }

Example 3:

#side h2, #side caption { color:#fff; background:#CC6600; font-size:10px; font-weight:normal; text-transform:uppercase; text-align:left; margin:0 0 1px 0; padding:2px 0 2px 5px; }

Example 4:

#side h2, #side caption { color:#fff; background:#f5f5f5; font-size:20px; font-family:'Georgia',arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-weight:italic; text-transform:lowercase; text-align:left; margin:0 0 1px 0; padding:2px 0 2px 5px; }

Aditional info: 1. With this element, if you want to experiment, you can make graphical header, however that might need tweaking padding and margin too. This might be explained later in tips and tricks wink 2. Feed blocks background is changed with #side h2.feedheader element from main.css of default theme. 3. Background of sidebar blocks, gray gradient can be changed thru .sidebox .pad element from main.css of default theme. Other sidebar elements If we take a look into main.css of default theme we will spot that there is a part about other sidebar elements, for example calendar and album slideshow, and countdown In this case I won't explain these elements line by because pretty much all elements have already been explained, but I will try to clear things up for you wink Calendar All important calendar css elements you might want to change: #calendar - This controls all general preferences. For example, width, font size, background, border and similar. #calendar th - This controls days in the week list. #calendar td - This controls 1 - 31 and months #calendar td a - This controls color of linked elements. #calendar td#today - This controls properties of cell in which today's number is located. #side a#calendarmonth:hover - This controls color of hover efect in calendar. Album slideshow All important albums slideshow css elements you might want to change: #albumslides - This controls all general preferences for slides. #side #albnav - This controls border and similar stuff of element described below this one. #control_left, #control_right - This controls control elements that are located below thumbnails. .albname - This controls elements related to list of albums you made. Countdowns #side .cdwn - All elements regarding countdowns wink. Example codes won't be posted here, but below with other codes and picture examples wink How examples look? Example 1: /SerbianFighter/homes/blog/example1look3.png Example 2: /SerbianFighter/homes/blog/example2look3.png Example 3: /SerbianFighter/homes/blog/example3look3.png Example 4: /SerbianFighter/homes/blog/example4look3.png
example1-part3.txt example2-part3.txt example3-part3.txt example4-part3.txt
End of Part 3 Useful links

Redesigning My.Opera space, blog and photo gallery in X easy steps Redesigning My.Opera space, blog and photo gallery in X easy steps

Comments

lulando Thursday, December 8, 2005 12:54:20 AM

Thanks!And Peace!

Brentbrentinfinland Monday, March 13, 2006 10:45:02 PM

How can i get the calendar out of the sidebar?

i see in the source code a div which contains an id='calendar'
where can i change that?

yrw1re Saturday, March 18, 2006 10:52:40 PM

maybe by adding "visibility:hidden" (without the quotes) to the properties of that div?

Eddieelcid73 Friday, March 31, 2006 3:32:15 AM

brentinfinland-

#calendar { display: none; }

Eddieelcid73 Friday, March 31, 2006 3:35:56 AM

My question is, can we create our own sidebox elements?

I'd like to add another box to my sidebar to replace the "about" box. I want to create a super "about" box that has more informatiobn than what's presented by default.

is this possible?

Ivan MinicSerbianFighter Friday, March 31, 2006 3:54:18 AM

Of course we can not...

Winterwinterdawn Thursday, September 11, 2008 6:24:52 AM

Hi! I was wondering how I can look into the "main.css of default theme" ? I have reached the "Enter CSS:" part, but I cannot find the default (complete) css of my opera blog. and after that, is it possible for me to add a flash music player in the sidebar? thanks! bigsmile

chaitanya krishnanchaitanyak Saturday, October 18, 2008 6:30:19 AM

Found these howtos really helpful by the way. smile keep up the good work!

I've been trying to figure out how to get google analytics to work on my opera blog (the hitslink site is blocked where i am for some reason! i cant access it from home or work. I can only access it through an online proxy, but i still cant login because the login scripts don't work through proxies)

anyway my questions are:
1)is it possible to load the google analytics tracking script into the blog sidebar some how? I know the script can't be pasted in the css file, so can i have it load the script on runtime?

2)has anyone tried this with any success?

3)is there some other way i can access the hitslink site.. or is there another anaalytics/stats service i can use with opera blogs
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