Blogdown: change CSS in the Academic theme - css

I am creating a blog with blogdown and the academic theme, which apparently is now available on the repo of Wowchemy. This repo doesn't have the same structure compared to the previous academic theme and I am a bit lost.
I would like to change some CSS components but I can't figure out how to do so. Here's what I tried so far.
Modify the .css and .scss files
I tried to modify the public/css/academic.css file and the resources/_gen/assets/scss/scss/main.scss_6c95cc1249b26b124274204dbf970c34.content file. In both cases, the changes are reset after blogdown::stop_server() and blogdown::serve_site().
This is also the case when I modify both of them before running the two blogdown functions.
Create a custom.css
As said in the Wowchemy documentation, I tried to put my changes in assets/scss/custom.css (I had to create the `scss folder as well), but apparently it does not influence the theme.
Question: How can I change some CSS parameters in the "new" Academic theme?

Related

serve_site changes CSS to its default values in blogdown

I'm creating a blogdown website using agency theme and everything works fine.
I changed some stuff in the CSS, located in public/css/agency.css and I can see all changes. However, when I restarted RStudio all changes I've made switch to their default values (colors and stuff). And the same happens if I run blogdown::serve_site()
I can't see what's going wrong with my approach and any help would be appreciated.
Do not touch the public directory. It is automatically generated from your website source files (see Section 1.2 of the blogdown book for some basics). If you want to change anything on your website, always change the source. In your case, you can either change the CSS file in the theme (personally I don't recommend this way), or provide your own static/css/agency.css to override your theme's CSS. For more about the overriding mechanism, see Section 2.7.

Prestashop changes to theme

I have been tasked with making a small design change (CSS) to a Prestashop site that used an off the shelf theme.
I know that in WordPress you can make a child theme to put your design changes in which is best practice.
Is there a similar method I should be using in Prestashop? Or alternatively is there anywhere in the dashboard I can put these changes?
If you're building from a default theme, then the correct way would be to go to Themes > Add New Theme > Create New Theme > Copy default-bootstrap and create a new theme.
There are no child themes in PrestaShop (any kind of inheritance system for themes would majorly complicate an already complex system). What you have is what you work with. If you bought a third party theme, then go modify it directly (modify .tpl files, modify global.css, etc.). IF you copied default theme, then work with your copy (just don't work with default theme, it may get updated).
An event better way would be to install compass and modify .sass files (that is the most correctest :D way).

Wordpress theme is taking no affect?

i want to make some changes into my wordpress css file. i downloaded the style.css and other css file via ftp and made all the changes into the codes i wanted to. I uploaded the files and replace it with the other files. I waited for some time to take it affect but nothing happened, i left it and open my site the other day but the things were still same, no changes. I was using the WP Minify cache plugin. I even deleted it and re upload the css files again but still no changes. I tried out so many things but no success.
I than changed the name of the theme main directory via ftp, it help me a bit and made me happy for awhile, all the changes appeared. I again needed some changes in css files but unfortunately again suffering the same process. Please help :(
P.S. No theme is taking the effects of modifications in the css files codes. i tried different themes, but same results. Even if i delete the style.css nothing happened, but when i delete the entire directory of that theme then blank white page appear on my website.
It doesn't sound like you activated the new theme from your administration panel.
http://codex.wordpress.org/Themes#Selecting_the_Active_Theme
When using any cache plugins you should delete its cache when you do any changes to the website. Have you already done that?
Are there any other css files being loaded after style.css that may alter what you are trying to change?
It's generally not a good idea to edit the themes style.css directly b/c when you upgrade that theme you will lose all of your customizations.
Doesn't your theme have some place for custom CSS? Some themes have it in Appearance >> Theme Options, or something of that nature. What theme is it? Do you have a framework, or child themes? More info needed ... but every theme has a spot for custom css; as was mentioned, it's not best practice to make your modifications in the actual main theme stylesheet, due to updates, etc. ... and anything in the custom css section overrides the default theme stylesheet.

Colors in Bootstrap custom download?

So I'm using the Bootstrap Customize and Download page to generate a version of the Bootstrap files with custom colors. I got the idea that I wanted to add some other colors (e.g. #purpleLight) to make upkeep of the site design easier, so I look through the downloaded contents the site generates, and my customizations don't appear to be anywhere, let alone somewhere for me to add others.
Here's what comes in the bootstrap.zip the site spits out:
css
bootstrap.css
bootstrap.min.css
img
glyphicons-halflings.png
glyphicons-halflings-white.png
js
bootstrap.js
bootstrap.min.js
...and that's it.
So, no colors anywhere in these files as far as I can tell. No LESS files included in the download. Am I doing something wrong? Is the site doing something wrong? Am I just not seeing something that is in fact there? To the best of my diffing abilities, the downloads seem identical regardless of the customization options I choose...
And, pending whose messing up here, what would be the alternative best way for me to customize a color palette for my Bootstrap site?
You can't add more LESS variables with the custom download tool. You can only redefine the values of the existing variables. Upon download, the tool compiles with those set variables but since you don't get the LESS files, you won't be able to add more variables afterwards, like #purpleLight you mentioned.
If you want to extend Bootstrap with more LESS variables, you have to download the full source and compile your css from the included LESS files. There's a file variables.less in the less/ folder where can add your #purpleLight.

Advice on SAFELY modifying / customizing Header on a Wordpress theme

I just started using Wordpress 3.0 to get a simple blog up and going. For now I am working with the default theme "Twenty Ten".
I want to make a simple change:
I'd like to modify the layout of the bloginfo( 'name' ), bloginfo( 'description' ), and php header_image() that appears at the top of the blog.
So, under Appearance, Editor, I select Header.php and I can see how this is being rendered.
It appears I can just modify this to my liking and I am good to go. (Correct?)
If so, my question is: is it considered proper practice to modify the html in header.php?
It seems to me that this is a bit dangerous, for example when it comes time to upgrade that same theme. How do I know which php files I have applied customizations to? Say I modify 6 php files, then an upgrade of the theme comes along...how does one handle re-applying these changes to the upgraded theme?
Is it a total "do over"?
Is there a better way to handle this scenario?
Maybe some themes are more powerful than others and can handle this type of customization more flexibly, and I should be searching for such a theme? Or, is there a reasonably proper and safe way to do this by directly editing the php files?
Child theme, child theme, child theme. Create a new folder in themes (name it whatever you want. Go crazy. As long as you don't name it twentyten). Create a style.css file in that directory and copy the whole style.css file from twentyten into it. Then, change the theme name in the css headers and add this line after the tags:
Template: twentyten
Then copy the header.php file over to another file in your directory, and edit to your heart's content. If twentyten ever gets updated, you'll get the benefit of those updates (unless they're in css or the header) without losing your changes.
Yes, you can edit the theme to your liking. I think it's common practice (however, I've always just created my own themes from scratch). Just give credit where it's due and don't pass it off as your own original work.
To avoid over-writing your customized theme when an upgrade comes out, you could save the customized one to a different folder in the themes directory with a different name, like Twenty Ten Customized. You can then copy or re-do the changes in the upgraded theme if you think the upgrades are worth the trouble. There's no rule that says you have to have the latest version of the theme, after all.
There might be other themes that allow a high degree of customization without editing the php, but most of the time you'd have to edit the php I'd think. (but I'm no pro theme developer.)
I would do as Benny suggested and rename the theme so that it isn't overwritten when you upgrade Wordpress.
I would not worry about updates to the actual theme because I don't think those ever really happen. The last Wordpress default theme was Kubrick and, to my knowledge, it rarely was updated and most updates were minor and went unnoticed by most users. If you go about customizing your theme, I don't think Wordpress is going to update the Twenty Ten theme to the point where you would ever wish that you hadn't edited the source because you wanted to upgrade to the new default theme.
If you don't want to actually edit any of the theme files, check out something like Thesis that allows you to customize most things from the admin.
Note: I'm not aware of a free theme that offers a lot of customization options through the admin panel, but there might be something if you check around for a while.
If I really had to stop automatic updates on my Wordpress theme, I'd do exactly what Kris + Chris Schmitz suggested (i.e. rename the theme differently). Modify header information in the style.css file in your theme's root to do this.
Personally, however, if the theme already works for me out of the box, I think I'd most probably already be fine with that. My website's running, the theme's working, and updating my theme may just break my site in ways I don't know.
I'd probably update it only for major security updates, but I'd probably be reading a changelog for that. But if I was doing that, I'd know what files exactly were modified, and I can just manually do it myself. Sounds like a lot of work, but better than my site buckling on me by some unknown cause.
If you do as Benny suggests and create a renamed copy of the default theme, you can use a free diff tool to compare the directories when an upgrade comes out. I'd use Meld ( http://meld.sourceforge.net/ ) to do a three-way directory comparison (Original theme, upgraded theme, modified copy) to determine if any changes have been made that impact the parts you changed, as well as to merge the upgrade changes into your modified files.

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