Hi Everyone, please allow me to introduce myself quick since I'm brand new to this forum. I'm in my mid 40's, married and living in TX. Originally I'm from Germany but living in TX for almost 4 years now. So please forgive me if my English might not be perfect always. I'm fairly new to Joomla and Virtuemart and I am trying to build an online store for my wife using Joomla 1.5 and Virtuemart 1.1.3, mysql3.1.3 and php5. Years Years ago, about 7 or 8 or so, I learned some basic skills in html, php and mysql and css. But since that time so many things have changed and I never could keep up on everything and a lot is gone. Anyway, now I am trying to get back into it again but I run in lots of problems sometimes. Mostly I can solve them by myself after spending hours and hours on it but well, that's part of the learning curve. So I decided to join this, as what I think really good forum with lots of good people. I have a few issues while working on the design of the online store that I just can't figure out myself. Anyway, here is what I just can't figure out right now and I'm looking for the help/advice from you guys who have more experience with VM 1.1 and who can help me how to include or modify css styles for the php templates and how to eventually modify those templates if needed. So let me get started... First problem... on the browse page I have the "Order By" field (shop_search_field). On this select field I would like to change the style of the border color and the background of the drop down menu button. So far I could change all other colors and border colors or whatever I was wanting to change on this browse page and the flypage templates but this one issue. Second problem.... at the checkout a still unregistered user needs to click the radio button for registering new and a "stretcher" comes up with the form for all billing info. Well, I could change the border colors of all input fields in this stretcher but can not change the border colors of the select fields for Title, Country or State/Region. I also can not change the lovely blue titles for the form (stretcher) that comes with the default template in VM or I just can't figure out how to do it. Also I would like to change the size of the select field (max lenght? or width?) for the Country since it shoots way out over the grey border around the form. Speaking of that border, I would like to change that grey to another color too. Somehow I can not find the right css class for that "stretcher" even though I could change the border colors of the input fields somehow. I know, this sounds confusing but I don't know how else to describe it. No matter if I have tried to create the styles in the css file that comes with the default template in VM or if I tried to add something to in css file I have for the basic template design in Joomla, which I created with the help of Artisteer. Should I maybe just copy that css file from the Joomla folder into the VM template folder??? But then how do I address it in all php template files in VM? Also when I reopen or reload the site the stretcher is not hidden anymore, the info form is permanently visible now. I could not think of a single thing I might have changed that would have caused that change. But that's something secondary I can live with. Right now I'm at work and so I can not attach any screen shots for you to see what I'm talking about in case you don't know. The sites aren't online. I'm working on it only on my pc at home. But later on tonight I could send something if you get back with me. Please don't get me wrong but I don't ask for anybody to do the work for me. I only ask for advices and hints how to do certain things because I am more than willing to learn and I would like to make web design and programming being more my hobby again and me being able to solve any issues on that online shop on my own someday, if needed. Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thank You Verdecove
Hi, Verdecove. People probably have been scared by the length of your post Last time I had to deal with Virtuemart was like a year ago so I don't really remember much. So I'm going to give you some basic directions about how you could act when you have to work with some unknown web platform... First thing - you should use Firefox for development, if you don't already do. You need 2 specific Firefox plugins - Firebug and Web Developer. Play with them a bit, see what they do. When you want to style a specific element of the page but don't know how to address it or even where the damn CSS file is, you can just mark that segment with te mouse in Firefox and right-click it. Choose View Selection Source from the popup menu. You should be able to see the tags (with classes etc) in which it is included. Search for it in the CSS file and see how it is already styled. You might need to check the above declarations as well and even up in the DOM hierarchy. If you can't fix it by just editing the existing css, then add another css declaration at the end of the file, addressing the particular markup. Make it as concrete as possible - include all parent tags, id's or classes so it can't be overriden by some already existing declaration that indirectly or not so obviously modifies it. In most cases it does the job done. Modifying the php template files usually requires at least some basic PHP knowledge. For exammple you can use Total Commander's text search function to find in which php file a particular tag or html element is generated... When you have the file, search inside it to find the block where it is menioned and try to realize how you could change it, if you need to. Sorry that I can't give any specific advices about your issues but hope that I've helped at least a bit. Good luck!
Hi Shazin, thank you so much for your reply on my thread. I have been using IE7 for development and always checked the source code but that didn't help me too much so far. Now I will follow your advice and I will use Firefox incl. the two plug ins you recommended to me. I do have some basic php skills but really only basics. It's a long time ago that I have worked with php and it will take me a while for me to remember certain things. But I can tell with every single day it gets a little bit better. Once again thanks for your reply. I will let you know how I will get along or probably I will post the one or other question or request for help here. Maybe I'll hear from you again. Cu Verdecove