style.css and php variables

Dekieon

I would like to have a config.php file which contains a bunch of different variables for my site.

a few of the variables are...

$bkground = "#FFFFFF"; //White
$colour1 = "#E8EFFF"; //Very Light Blue
$colour2 = "#91B5FF"; //Light Blue
$colour3 = "#000000"; //Black

and i would like to setup a style.css file for the site.

some code from the style.css file

body
{
Background-Color: White;
Font-Family: Arial;
Background: White;
Color: #000000
Font-Size: 12pt;
}

I would like to replace Color: #000000 with the $colour3 variable.

I tried to set it up the color line like.....
Color: <?php $colour2 ?>;
also tried...
Color: <?php $colour2; ?>;

but neihter worked for me. I don't get any errors or anything, I just don't get colour from the variable, just black text.

Do i just have a simple coding error, or is it not possible to drop php variables into the style.css file?

mrhappiness

rename the file to style.css.php

Dekieon

I renamed the file to style.css.php, and changed my link line to reflect style.css.php aswell and i am still not getting my light blue text

Any other ideas what might be wrong?

mrhappiness

Where from does php now what the value of $color2 is?

Weedpacket

And don't forget to say in the PHP code what you want to do with the variable
<?php echo $colour2; ?>

It would also be better to configure your server to process .css files as PHP the same as for .php files; no-one is going to care how your site generates CSS files, so "style.css.php" is just unnecessary waffle.

Dekieon

Originally posted by mrhappiness
Where from does php now what the value of $color2 is?

my main .php file contains some includes, one of which contains all my colour variables. then after the includes in the <head></head> I have the link to the style.css

Originally posted by Weedpacket
And don't forget to say in the PHP code what you want to do with the variable
<?php echo $colour2; ?>

It would also be better to configure your server to process .css files as PHP the same as for .php files; no-one is going to care how your site generates CSS files, so "style.css.php" is just unnecessary waffle.

I put in the echo, but it made no difference. I'm starting to think that maybe i should scrap the idea of making the style sheet dynamic. and just leave it as static values. Then when i put new themes into the site, just copy the style.css and modify it for each theme.

Weedpacket

You do realise that the request for the HTML page and the request for the CSS document are two entirely separate requests that the web server handles separately.

In other words, there is no reason to expect that setting variables when processing the request for the HTML page will have any effect when it comes to processing the request for the CSS page.

So you need to be either setting the colour variables' values in the CSS page, or make sure you're using include to read your configuration file into the CSS page, or you'll need to pass their values from one request to the other (say, by using session variables).

Of course, you may already be doing all this: if you are, the information is missing from the original post.