This is RapidWeaver's Page Inspector, showing
adjustments that can be made to a typical template, or
theme as it's known in the RapidWeaver community. Not
as much control as I was used to, but it wasn't half
bad. Then I got to thinking—how many layouts can you
use to design Web pages anyway? There's a limit to the
combinations of sidebar, header, and main content, and
after looking at the themes that ship with RapidWeaver,
I could see all the variations I was likely to need
there. In fact, looking back on the sites I've designed
in the past, there was nothing there that wasn't the
same layout as at least one RapidWeaver theme. Then I
thought: 'But what if the client wants the navbar a
smidgen narrower, or the header not quite so deep?' Am
I going to tell him 'Sorry, I'm using a template, and I
can't alter it'? I couldn't see myself doing that. So I
joined the RapidWeaver forum and started asking
questions, and got some interesting answers, really
fast. Great forum. Turns out that you can go way beyond
the adjustments shown above, by entering custom CSS in
a box in the Page Inspector.
Here's the Page Inspector showing the box you
enter it in. Trouble was, I didn't know any. But
something strange happened—when it turned out that I
HAD to learn at least a bit of CSS, I found I was
enjoying it. All the years I'd used other applications,
I'd never felt that I would ever be able to learn to
code; RapidWeaver actually made it fun!
Here's how it came about: I'd decided, against all
common sense, to do an actual paying job using
RapidWeaver. I wasn't going to use any of the header
images in the theme and in any case, the client wanted
her own. Thing was, there were fourteen pages, and the
theme I was using could only give me eight. So I wrote
to the RapidWeaver forum to ask what I should do. I'd
been thinking that I could always duplicate the theme
and set up different header pictures in each, although
that sounded a bit clunky. Sioni, a resident genius,
came to my rescue within the hour, and explained how to
do it via CSS, without having to use
any of
the included header 'slots' in the theme. There's a
tutorial later in the site where I've explained how to
do what I learned.
I was surprised how, after saying I'd never get
involved in any sort of code, it was so easy to pick
up. It's really the syntax that matters; you can look
up the actual values at dozens of places on the net
(try
here,
here or
here) or use this great
Dashboard Widget, but the
important bit is the way you write it in. I'd say
to anyone still thinking they'll never be able to
do it: try, it's not that difficult. Not that I'm
even close to being an expert yet, but I can do
enough to take away the 'it's a template' worry.
