Custom Design

Brewhaus · Post by **Brewhaus** » Sat Feb 09, 2008 7:50 pm

I know that I read on here a link to instructions for custom designing the pages. I guess it is basically designing your own themes. Does anyone have this link?

AbleMods · Post by **AbleMods** » Sat Feb 09, 2008 8:39 pm

There's a link in my sig for all the AC7 articles I've written. I believe one of them is writing your own user controls for custom server-side content.

Is that what you're referring to, or are you looking for layout/CSS type custom design?

Brewhaus · Post by **Brewhaus** » Sat Feb 09, 2008 9:01 pm

I am looking for layout / CSS design, I believe. What I want to do is design the appearance of the store itself instead of using the pre-installed themes.

AbleMods · Post by **AbleMods** » Mon Feb 11, 2008 8:46 pm

Ok, I'm css-intolerant so I'm not a good source of information. I don't recall seeing any posts that discuss it in general, just specific changes certain users wanted.

There used to be a document that described how to copy an existing theme and then change it, but it's very basic. Just colors, nothing more.

A full site redesign of the CSS would involve more than is possible to be posted here in the forums.

I need to do the same thing. Theming in AC7 is all .Net based, so I'm just going to snag a book on it soon and starting to study up.

Brewhaus · Post by **Brewhaus** » Mon Feb 11, 2008 8:52 pm

I could have sworn that I saw something about designing your own 'theme'. I have seen a few sites (a couple even posted on here for people to give opinions of) that were far from the appearance given with the installed themes.

AbleMods · Post by **AbleMods** » Mon Feb 11, 2008 8:58 pm

Making a theme of your own to work with is easy; just copy an existing theme folder into a new folder in ~/App_Themes and set it as your default theme in the AC7 admin.

But manipulating the style.css and all the object classes, that's a whole different story. I've changed a few colors, altered some very minor page layouts but that's it.

Those sites are full theme redesigns - new button objects, new graphics and new page layouts.

Brewhaus · Post by **Brewhaus** » Mon Feb 11, 2008 9:02 pm

So, what you are saying is that it is a ton of work, and for those of us trying to operate our business while getting another online, the cookie-cutter themes (with slight mods) are really the only way to go?

... I really need to free up some time.

AbleMods · Post by **AbleMods** » Mon Feb 11, 2008 9:16 pm

Welcome to MY world.

Some people are just amazing at that stuff - whipping out graphics and images like it's no effort at all. Compunerdy can figure out anything that's wrong with my CSS. Satori is amazing with what she's done to her new site. Hell, her OLD site looked 10x better than mine.

The best I can do is swipe some digital photo from Microsoft Photo Gallery, slap a drop shadow on it and call it done.

satori · Post by **satori** » Mon Feb 11, 2008 11:09 pm

I just responded to your PM, but again, I used to do this for a living (asp, java, .net programmer) and I love Photoshop/CSS/web programming as just a hobby. Building sites into reality is what thrills me. I had another huge online EQ gaming site that used to be really popular when Everquest was, but I swore off gaming when baby was born 3 years ago.

Having said that, I did pay a company to build me an image, I was very specific that I wanted it fresh, clean, and modern. They sent me PSD file of what they thought would be a good design and I used HTML/css/code to make it into reality. I "whipped" it up faster than they thought and I haven't even paid yet, lol.

Although I have been into this for 8 years (after graduating college) I'm just a little newbie and have lots to learn and looking forward to everyday that I learn. Not many people are as excited as I am about all this, lol.

jmestep · Post by **jmestep** » Tue Feb 12, 2008 6:42 am

Able is coming out with some skins for the store, but I don't know what time. They have shown us a couple in the AC7Dev forum and they are a lot more professional looking.
Also, for those of you who aren't above "cheating", you can view and/or copy a site's style sheet, change to the colors you want and make some new graphics and apply to your site. (Yes, I've done that)

compunerdy · Post by **compunerdy** » Tue Feb 12, 2008 8:34 am

I had another huge online EQ gaming site that used to be really popular when Everquest was, but I swore off gaming when baby was born 3 years ago.

I had to swear off gaming when I started my own business. It used to be that I couldnt afford to have fun..now I just cant afford to take any time off to have fun.

Brewhaus · Post by **Brewhaus** » Tue Feb 12, 2008 8:03 pm

I would assume that to 'copy' a style sheet it must be another AC7 site? And, how would one go about doing this? Changing the colors, graphics etc., are fairly easy.

I am with you, compunerdy. When we have the time for fun, we don't have the money. Then you finally have the money, but no time to enjoy it.

satori · Post by **satori** » Tue Feb 12, 2008 8:57 pm

That's very true, lol!

Although I do think that I've tried very hard to get my company to run by itself. Once I'm done smoothing out all the new cart details, I will only have to spend a few hours a week and will pay others to do it for me. Knowing my personality, I'll just pick something else up to do.

Brewhaus · Post by **Brewhaus** » Tue Feb 12, 2008 9:04 pm

I wish that I had that option! Mine is very much a 'knowledge' business, where without that knowledge we are nothing. Unfortunately, many customers also assume that nobody else in the business is able to write, so even to just give an order people ask for me personally. I have learned to hand them back over to someone else, but it still takes up time.

That is okay, though. If I am not busy, I will find something that needs to be done. After all, if I am not busy 12+ hours per day, then the business must be falling apart.

The problem being that I like to know the inner workings of things such as our website (I do not like to rely on others for such important things- they are not always there when you have an urgent need), so I need to somehow fit that learning curve- and subsequent time to manipulate the site- into the few minutes that I can find here and there. That of course delays launching new things.

jmestep · Post by **jmestep** » Wed Feb 13, 2008 9:17 am

Copy a style sheet. You can view the source on an html page to see where the stylesheet is located,then open that stylesheet. [Deleted link]. I'm sorry, Angela. Viewing someone else's css was a tremendous help to me when I was trying to figure css out.

satori · Post by **satori** » Wed Feb 13, 2008 9:51 am

I personally think its unethical to copy a style sheet that someone else worked very hard on. Please don't copy mine.

Brewhaus · Post by **Brewhaus** » Wed Feb 13, 2008 8:06 pm

I would not want to copy someone style sheet, but it could be helpful in learning how to manipulate things to get them the way you want them. I have seen different sites with different features that I like or dislike, but none that would be exactly what I want.

As I mentioned before- I like to know the inner workings of our sites, and simply copying someone else's work is not going to help in that respect. But seeing how they did what they did certainly can be a huge help.

satori · Post by **satori** » Wed Feb 13, 2008 8:25 pm

Oh yes, viewing other websites styles is extremely helpful! Sometimes I just peek in to see if they're using nested tables or css for their designs. I certainly examined dozens of website designs before I came up with my final look. I used alot of CSS websites and books to refer to to get the exact look, I still have alot to work on.

Alot of the biggest CSS sites when you read their style sheets specifically say not to copy.

Hehe, I'm just laughing because my little 3 year old is exclaiming "I WON! I won too, good job! Now you can get through!" (We just got done watching American Idol, rofl.

IndyTwoStep · Post by **IndyTwoStep** » Mon Feb 18, 2008 8:02 am

jmestep wrote:Able is coming out with some skins for the store, but I don't know what time. They have shown us a couple in the AC7Dev forum and they are a lot more professional looking.

Anyone have any more info on this? I'd be interested to see a sneak peak...