[thelist] Variable Stylesheets?

[Shirley Kaiser, SKDesigns]

Hi, Lon,

At 06:36 PM 12/02/2001, you wrote:
>Hi Shirley
>
> > > > Here's a quicky sample: http://www.famnets.com/varcsstest.asp
> > >very nice technique
> > >rudy
> >
> > Lon, I agree with Rudy. Very nice technique! I'd love to see this
> > implemented and played with further. I like what you've done and see a
> > terrific use for it. From your original note, it seems like such a logical
> > approach. Keep going. And I like Michelle's idea of publishing this at
> > evolt.org, too.
>
>Thanks, you're very kind. Actually, this whole thing is an extension of a
>technique that aardvark (adrian) use(s/d) on his site (roselli.org) to allow
>a user to select a text size. I punched up his code to include the ability
>to select a layout too (ice, jello, liquid). It's when I started to desire
>offering selectable colors that my feeble gears started to churn.

Ah! Now my wheels are turning, too. I really want users to be able to 
easily change the font sizes. While many of us may know how to do that in 
our browsers, I suspect not that many visitors do, but also, I don't want 
to change the font size for just one site and then change it again for 
another. Having something at a particular site is nifty, in my opinion, and 
even better is having a cookie set so that the site would remember the 
settings for next time (which I see you've also thought of).

ALA had an article recently on doing something like this that Jeffrey 
Zeldman has also implemented at his own site and also at ALA, but I don't 
think it's with ASP and it's not quite as cross-browser friendly quite yet, 
although they continue to tweak and improve that one, too.

And Little Green Footballs weblog does something with PHP for font sizing 
and whether or not to open links in new windows:
http://www.littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/lgf-prefs.php

> > I'd love to play around with this for a webpage or two also. This would
> > work on any page that links to it, correct? In other words, if a visitor
> > came to your site and wanted to change the entire site, they could? (I'm a
> > designer/developer, not a programmer, so I apologize if it's a newbie
> > question!)
>
>Please, 'play around'! Let me know if I can assist.

OK. I'll start playing around with it after I finish some projects this 
week. I've got this tagged to fiddle with, and I have some ideas brewing in 
my head. So I'll keep you posted.

One idea I'd like to implement in addition to font sizing is to click a 
button to have a printable version of the page (using pt instead of px in 
the style sheet, for example), and maybe change the font, too, if the 
visitor has a preference.

>  Yup, it'll 'work on any
>page that links to it'. It starts with defaults, then processes selection
>requests. The selections are respected throughout a session for the entire
>site via temp cookies or persisted (opt-in) for future visits.

Ah, great.

>You're too modest and from what I know of you (list posts and your terrific
>site), you couldn't possibly be tagged a 'newbie'!

<chuckle> Well, thanks. And yeah, OK, I'm not a newbie to design and 
development (5-1/2+ years isn't really newbie material <chuckle>), but 
programming is another story... I just do a little, primarily working with 
existing scripts, but I do understand what's going on some of the time... 
it doesn't look like Greek to me. But I really don't do programming and 
prefer to leave that to the experts. You're all way over my head with so 
much of the programming stuff you all talk about. It's way beyond me. And 
there are times when I'm not even sure what questions to ask to get the 
implementations that I have in mind. I also know my niche is with design 
and development and I know what I need to stay away from. <grin>

So, Lon, this looks like a fun adventure. I'll look forward to working on 
some things after I finish some projects this coming week. Thanks again!

Warmly,
Shirley

-- 
Shirley E. Kaiser, M.A.
SKDesigns  mailto:skaiser at skdesigns.com
Website Design, Development  http://www.skdesigns.com/
Pianist, Composer  http://www.shirleykaiser.com/
Brainstorms and Raves http://www.brainstormsandraves.com/
Moderator, I-Design http://www.adventive.com/lists/idesign/summary.html