Hey,
I am taking my first steps in customising the look of a journal. I have journal manager rights but no access to the server. I started using the management pages - the look to move blocks from one sidebar to the other. Strangely, when I put something in the left sidebar, it appears on top of the main body (but below the header) no matter how many or which blocks I put in and which theme I choose. How can I get it back to the left? The right sidebar is not affected. I am planning on using the css upload function later on for further customization. Can I enter something there to correct the layout? I am using Firefox and we run OJS 2.4.5.0.
Hi Heike,
Do you know if your journal has already any custom work related to it’s interface? Any css uploaded, or even source code changed directly?
Cheers.
Hey,
I do not know of any changes directly applied to the source code.
I created a test journal to play around with the layout. There is no custom css uploaded for this one.
On another note: there is also a suspiciously large margin left of the left sidebar and right of the rigth side bar, which causes a lot of wasted blank space. But that could also be due to the monitor I use.
Can you send me a link to your journal?
Thanks,
Bruno
No, I can actually not. I have created a test journal which is not publicly visible within our multi-journal installation
to tinker with the layout. I would have to create an account for you. Meanwhile, I have played around with width parameters and uploaded a custom css to overwrite pre-set widths of the side bars and main. This solved the problem. Somehow, the widths of left sidebar, right sidebar and main had added up to over 100%. I reduced them and now everything is side by side. I have also discovered the developer tools of the Firefox which will help me a lot at adjusting things and I will have probably many more questions in the future. Like, what is the space beyond the sidebars called and how can I change that (i.e. color)? Sidebars+main only take up 2/3 of the screen and 1/3 is wasted. Questions over questions …
Hi Heike,
If you can’t show me the journal, then I am afraid I can’t help too much, sorry.
UI wasted space is a matter of taste. Some people find it very useful to have empty space on the side bars, making the whole content lighter to read. I think that’s the goal here. It’s not 1/3 also, if you look at the div with id “main”, you will see that it’s width is set to 80%, so it’s more like 1/5 of empty space.
If you are using the developer tools in firefox, you would be able to inspect an element by clicking on it and check the css that formats that element.
To play with the visual side I would recommend you to learn more about CSS and HTML. You would be much more productive that way.
Cheers,
Bruno