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Destination Infinity asked:

What is this CSS and why should some one edit it?

CSS is the acronym for Cascading Style Sheets, and it is a language used to style web pages written in HTML and XHTML. In other words, with CSS stylesheets you can specify the colors, spacing, fonts and other design elements for all or some HTML pages inside a website.

CSS was developed to separate the content of the document (i.e. the information itself) from its presentation. This separation is beneficial both for web publishers and for the end user.

For web publishers, it becomes much easier to create tableless designs and to have a consistent look across different pages. Using just HTML, for example, you would need to specify your fonts, colors and spacing on every single page of your website. Imagine if we were talking about hundreds of pages. It would become time consuming to create all of them with the same design elements, and virtually impossible to make quick layout changes after that.

Using CSS, on the other hand, you would specify all your design elements on the stylesheet (usually called style.css), and the browser would refer to that document when displaying your HTML pages to know what color, fonts and spacing it should use.

As a consequence, it becomes much easier to make design changes, too. You would just need to tweak the CSS stylesheet to change a specific element, say the color of your links or the size of the H1 titles, across all your website pages.

The advantage for the end user, on the other hand, comes from the fact that CSS enables the same page to be displayed in different styles. It becomes possible therefore to have a version of your site for people that will access it on a computer monitor and another version for people that want to print it out.

Now the reader also asked about “why one should edit the CSS.” Well, provided you used a CSS based design, you should edit it whenever you want to make changes on your design. Suppose you have a WordPress blog, and you want to increase the size of your font, or perhaps align your logo slightly to the left.
You would need to log into your control panel, then choose “Design,” then “Theme editor.” and then you would need to edit the style.css file.

That is the stylesheet of your blog, and it controls all the design elements. If your theme was coded properly, it should be easy to understand what code is controlling what element, and within minutes you will be able to navigate around. Sometimes you will need to go with trial and error too, but as long as you keep a backup file, there is nothing wrong with that.

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Q&A: What Is CSS?

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QA: What Is CSS?

The WordPress Showcase is a featured on the WordPress.org website that was launched in November 2008. According to them it is “a display of some of the best and brightest WordPress users, who are using it to do a whole lot more than blog.”

A couple of weeks ago I thought that it would be cool to get Daily Blog Tips featured there, and I sent my application. Today I received an email letting me know that the application was accepted! You can view the Daily Blog Tips showcase here. If you have some time please give it a good rating too!

It is a pretty interesting section of their website, and it gives you the opportunity to discover the websites and people that are using WordPress as their CMS. For example, did you know that the site of the Brazilian Ministry of Culture uses WordPress on its official website? Pretty cool.

If you have a popular blog using WordPress, or if you employ it in innovative ways, it could be worth to send your application too.

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Daily Blog Tips on the WordPress Showcase

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Daily Blog Tips on the WordPress Showcase

The Blogging Questions & Answers column that I write every Friday (if I remember well I haven’t missed one since October) gained a lot of popularity lately. Many readers thank me for the information they get there, and many others say that they pop up every Friday especially to read that post.

I will obviously keep doing them, therefore, but I will try to change the format slightly. In which way? Basically I will try to answer one single question per post, and write one post every week day. So from Monday to Friday you will find one Q&A live.

Why I want to try this format? For two main reasons. First of all it will make the Q&A a more frequent thing, and it will also help to increase the overall posting frequency on the blog. This means more fresh content for the readers. Secondly, answering only one question per post will allow me to focus more on the question that is being asked, hopefully proving a longer and more structured answer to it.

Anyway it is just a test. If you guys like it (and if I manage to keep up with it), we will keep doing it in 2009. Otherwise we can always revert to the previous format.

Later today the first question will go live, so stay tuned!

Ah, and if you’ve got a question, ask away!

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Changing the Format of The Q&A: Now More and Better

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Changing the Format of The QA: Now More and Better