Changing the appearance of side panel items

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There are several controls in NeatClubs to allow you to change the appearance of side panel elements.

Properties of side panel elements include:

•The Border Color
•The Border Style
•The Border Width
•Background Color
•Text Color
•Title blocks
•Shadow Properties
•Rounding Properties
•Orientation (left/right)
•Presentation order
•Interior element padding
•Margins exterior to the side panel element

 

Unfortunately, setup varies slightly depending on the type of side panel element. This is because in our experience needs vary.

To assist in configuring parameters of the various side panel elements covered in the Configuring the layout section, we provide some addition tips here relevant to each of the properties above.

The Border Color

Border colors are now independently configurable for different types of side panel elements in the color setup. The color setup can be found on the subheader (if enabled) or under "System Setup" / "Preferences" / "Appearance" when logged in as a site administrator.

Color setup parameters related to side panel borders include:

•login_area_border - affects the appearance both when logged in and not logged in.
•side_panel_ads_border - this setting affects the border around both text and graphic based side panel ads
•sidepanel_doc_border - for sides displaying documents embedded in side panels, this setting controls the color of the border around this content
•sidetable_border - describes the default border color for side panel elements not explicitly configurable
•sidepicture_border - the border color to appear around sidepanel photo gallery elements whether "static" or "scrolling".

 

Generally, color parameters are reflected in a generated CSS file called http://sitename.com/css/layout.css generated based on a CSS template available at http://sitename.com/css/template.css. Some of the color properties however are read from the database. Color settings are loaded only once per session, so if you change color properties on the site, it will be necessary to clear the browser cache, and logout and login again to be sure that the new colors are being recognized.

The Border Style

The border-style CSS property injected into side panel borders can be modified using the NeatClubs web interface under "System Setup" / "Preferences" / "Appearance". You will need to click on the "Show Advanced Options" link to see these settings.

Whether border style properties appear will depend on whether they are supported by the browser viewing the content. In some cases the system will over-ride choices made here. For example, if rounded corners are selected, rounded corners work only with "solid" border styles so the selection of other border styles will be ignored.

Background Color

Text Color

Title Blocks

Shadow Properties

Rounding Properties

Orientation (Left / Right)

Presentation Order

Interior Element Padding

Margins exterior to the side panel element