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<blockquote cite="mid20050722192719.GJ28017@host.pmichaud.com"
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<pre wrap=""> <!--HeaderText-->
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+<div id='globalwrapper'>
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Here I would typically style the <body> tag directly, rather
than add and use a separate div. (Although I can conceive there might
be a need or desire to have additional margin control beyond the
margins/padding of the body tag itself.)
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I think this is a fairly common browser bug workaround. I think the
idea is that you style the body to use really small text (knowing that
browsers aren't supposed to go below 8 point font), then you use the
globalwrapper to scale back up from the known font size. A couple of
big themes seem to use it, including the wikipedia engine I think?<br>
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<blockquote cite="mid20050722192719.GJ28017@host.pmichaud.com"
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<pre wrap="">@@ -24,8 +25,9 @@
<!--wiki:$Group.SideBar $SiteGroup.SideBar--></td>
<!--/PageLeftFmt-->
<td id='wikibody' valign='top'>
+ <div id='wikimaincontent'>
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Most styles that could be applied to #wikimaincontent here can just
as easily go to #wikibody. I'm not sure that I know of any that
wouldn't work in this instance.
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I saw this as a big limitation. The wikibody tag is styling the cell
that contains the text, the wikimaincontent is styling the text
itself. Consider in particular when you want some kind of border
around the text, say a drop shadow or something. In this case you need
the cell to hold back the rest of the theme, but you can't (as far as I
know) then easily put another border around the text content itself.
(Imagine a style where you have some colourful borders that hold the
top and side nav bars, then some kind of formatting or background
around the text itself)<br>
<br>
Certainly it seems to offer more flexibility for the sake of a few
extra characters<br>
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<blockquote cite="mid20050722192719.GJ28017@host.pmichaud.com"
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<pre wrap=""><!--PageTitleFmt-->
- <table width='100%' cellspacing='0' cellpadding='0' border='0'><tr>
+ <table id='wikibodynav' width='100%' cellspacing='0'
cellpadding='0' border='0'><tr>
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<pre wrap=""><!---->
Adding id='wikibodynav' is a good idea here, since there's
not an easy way to otherwise get at this table. (However, in the new
skin I'm hoping to get rid of this particular table altogether, so... :-)
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Yeah, sure, you could get rid of all the tables here from what I have
seen of peoples' CSS abilities. However, it's easier for me (a css
novice) to work with a partial table site. <br>
<br>
I find big DIV's around logical blocks of content useful. You can use
firefox's live CSS editor to quickly play with the site style. If
there are a bunch of individual divs, but no wrapper divs then it's a
pain putting top borders on the top div, side borders only on the
middle divs and then bottom borders on the bottom div.... <br>
<br>
Anyway, the current theme seems pretty flexible. I think it's just a
CSS change that would transform the look of the standard PM theme.
Look forward to seeing what you come up with!!<br>
<br>
Ed W<br>
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