Editing CSS

Jack_Goa

I am busy working on a content management system and my partner came up with the bright idea of giving users the ability to edit the css file.
Obviously we would only give them very limited options, like changing background colours and positioning and so forth. But now I don't want to have the css file having to check the database everytime a page loads, can someone maybe suggest a way that the users (via an admin panel) can change their css (with dropdown options) and then just have the original file being overwritten each time instead of storing the info in the db?:rolleyes:

Roger_Ramjet

Well the easy way would be to have a user css file that is linked to as eg

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="css/user123.css" title="combined" />

Each user css file only needs to contain the user-configurable code. Using 'combined' like this is a much easier way to make css dynamic than the other option of importing into an exisitng style sheet - unless you like all your css to be embedded or inline 🙁
How you manage the file name for each user is up to you.

Jack_Goa

No I want the user to be able to edit the file for his own site. NOT a per user basis.
My question is what would be the 'user-configurable code' as you put it?😕

Weedpacket

I think there needs to be clarification here.

Jack Goa wrote:
No I want the user to be able to edit the file for his own site. NOT a per user basis.

Unless I'm mistaken, you just used the word "user" to refer to two entirely different concepts.

If you're talking about the site owner being able to edit the CSS of their own site, then either they can just edit the CSS file themselves, or you can put it in a big textarea for them to edit. Anything fancier would probably end up being more restrictive and you'll be getting requests from site owners asking how they can style something that you didn't cater for (like, I want input text fields to turn red when I mouse over their containing div).

Roger_Ramjet

Jack Goa wrote:
My question is what would be the 'user-configurable code' as you put it?😕

This would be any and all properties that you decide to allow the 'user' to configure.
eg let them set their own background colour
body { background: blue; }
All the other body style would be in the main css file.

Jack_Goa

Weedpacket, yeah sorry, might have been unclear there yes. The owner of the site is what I had in mind. Giving him the whole stylesheet is just looking for trouble.
I want togive him a form with certain areas, like colour etc being editable.
I have no idea how to go about it though.

Weedpacket

Well as Roger Ramjet had it:
Step 1: Collect Underpants:
<label for="background-colour">Page background colour: <input type="text name="background-colour" id="background-colour" /></label> (if you want to get really witty, a colour picker widget like the one in Yahoo!'s YUI kit could be used instead of just a text box)

............

Step 3: Profit!
fwrite($custom_css_file, "body {background-color: $background_colour;}\n");

And in the page:
<link rel="stylesheet" media="all" type="text/css" href="common.css" />
<link rel="stylesheet" media="all" type="text/css" href="<?php echo $custom_css_filename?>.css" />

Jack_Goa

Oki, thanks. I'll play around with that.
Shot for the help!