External PHP file serving as a CSS sheet?

So I have been looking into methods that would allow me to resize the left-margin on an element in my category-archive-display-page in accordance to the size of the thumbnail image that accompanies the element I want to work with (the element is an excerpt). I found out about using a .php file as a CSS sheet, and I am confused as to how to make it work. I made a .php file, and put the link to it in my archive.php file (which controls the display of the element). What I have so far in the .php file is this:

<?php
header("Content-type: text/css; charset: UTF-8");

echo "div.summary-content h2.posttitle, div.summary-content p.date, div.summary-content div.entry {
margin-left:265px;}";

//$thumbnailx=get_the_post_thumbnail( $size[1] );

?>

PHP:

The comment is what I will be using later on instead of 265, but now I am just looking for results. Is there something wrong with this code? Because there are definitely no results showing up on my website.

 

If you view the file directly in a browser does the css look correct?

 

No, the CSS doesn't even show up if I view it in my browser (firefox). I don't even know if I'm writing correctly, or implementing it in the right way.

 

Echo the fraking style tag otherwise it won't work . Also you echo a fixed value not a variable.

 

Sorry, I'm new to PHP and HTML, could you show me what you mean?

 

damn i need to learn php..

 

Even though this isn't relevent, I got an overview of HTML, CSS, and PHP at w3schools, Google it. It doesn't go into too much depth, but it's very simple.

 

Your header could be a problem depending upon the browser. Need more information (and you to test) to establish that. I recommend you try it in Firefox, Chrome, IE, Safari and Opera to ensure the CSS is displayed fine in all. Anyway, here's a short hand for what you could do:

<?php

header blah 

?>

whatever CSS

<?php 

whatever PHP

?>

Code (markup):

Saves echoing/printing the CSS all of the time.

 

Oh, so I should just style it in the archive.php file without the external CSS sheet? I think I might have tried that already, but it won't hurt to try again.

 

I tried this...

<style type="text/css">
div.summary-content h2.posttitle, div.summary-content p.date, div.summary-content div.entry {
margin-left:<?php echo get_the_post_thumbnail( $size[1] ); ?>px;
}
</style>

PHP:

...in the archive.php file with no results. When I change it to this...

<style type="text/css">
div.summary-content h2.posttitle, div.summary-content p.date, div.summary-content div.entry {
margin-left:265px;
}
</style>

PHP:

...it puts the margin into the page. I am using the latest version of Firefox. Am I doing something wrong?

PS: I think something got weird with the PHP tags, because they aren't displaying correctly (I think).

 

Try this for archive.php

<?php
header('content-type: text/css; charset: UTF-8');
header('cache-control: must-revalidate');

echo <<<'EOD'
div.summary-content h2.posttitle, 
div.summary-content p.date, 
div.summary-content div.entry {
margin-left:265px;
}
EOD;

?>

PHP:

And in the header use:

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="screen" href="/css-path/archive.php" />

 

Put that in archive.php, or the seperate .php stylesheet?