I am refreshing the design of my site. As a baby step (i.e, before I tackle 'Advanced Designs'), I am switching from Professional Design #1 to Professional Design #4 (mostly because as my site has grown I like having both horizontal and vertical menu bars). I have two 'problems' with Professional Design #4:

1. When the Class Creator system switched over in January 2013, the fonts on my navigation bar seemed to change (they looked smaller). This is not a browser issue (I'm using the same browser and browser settings). I'm pretty sure that when I set up my site originally (over a year ago), I had the ability to modify the fonts for the navigation menu choices. I no longer see how to do that? Am I missing something?

2. One thing I dislike about Professional Design #4 is the black background embedded in the vertical navigation bar. Is there any way to change that? I'm not sure when I'll get a chance to dive into 'Advanced Designs' to develop a completely custom design, but if there is a quick way to change it, I'd appreciate any advice.

p.s. I searched the forums but did not see these questions addressed elsewhere.

Thanks!

If you want to override the black background, you can do so until CC offers that option.

To test, just put this code on a page using the Editor Source mode<style type="text/css"> #sidebar1 { float: left; width: 230px; background: #00FF00; /* new color */ padding: 15px 0 0 0; margin-right: 42px; position:relative; z-index:2; } </style>

I don't know what color you wanted, but that's a bright green.

To get it modified for the whole site, it needs to be put in Analytics.

Fonts can be changed the same way. IMO, the fonts look great, better than Advanced, but I can show how to do that if this is making sense

Jack,
This is most helpful. Our school colors are green & white, so that's the 'theme' I'm trying to stick with (and it's why the black is so out of place). I tried out your suggestion on my home page and I thank you very much. I'll mess around with the color (your green is really 'bright', lol)... but I'm not sure I want to copy/paste the HTML in every page since I have a fair number of pages, so if the Analytics approach isn't too painful and you have a few moments to explain that, I'm all ears.

About the fonts... what I meant was the font size (and not the font type, which I agree looks great).

Thanks again!

All you do is paste the same thing in an area called Analytics. Then ALL pages automatically get changed. Font size determines when the link descriptions 'wrap', so if you make longer description, they will take up a 2nd line. That's the balance CC was looking for.

Here's all the code you need to change both the background and the text size. I included ALL the specs in first example (less below also works for the changes you wanted), but this way one can also even change the font. I changed the size from .85 to 1.00. <!-- put this in Analytics and change background to color + font size desired --> <style type="text/css"> #sidebar1 { float: left; width: 230px; background: #00FF00; /* new color */ padding: 15px 0 0 0; margin-right: 42px; position:relative; z-index:2; } .sf-v-holder { /* text font+size in left vertical menu */ width: 200px; margin: 0 auto; padding:0; text-align: left; font: bold 1.00em Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; /* the number 1.00 is the font size */ border: 1px solid #FFFFFF; border-bottom:0; } .sf-h-holder { /* text font+size in horizontal menu */ width: auto; margin: 0 auto; font-size: inherit; font: bold 1.00em Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; /* the number 1.00 is the font size */ text-align: left; line-height: normal; } </style>

The minimum you need is just this (/* */ is comment code<style type="text/css"> #sidebar1 { background: #00FF00; /* new color */ } .sf-v-holder { /* text font+size in left vertical menu */ font: bold 1.00em Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; /* the number 1.00 is the font size */ } .sf-h-holder { /* text font+size in horizontal menu */ font: bold 1.00em Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; /* the number 1.00 is the font size */ } </style>

Any of the designs can me modified the same way. Please note though that they vary in specific definitions. For example, the 'width' sizes I had in the full version do not apply to all designs. Some have an image and so forth. You can technically put an image as a background on the side (vs just a color change if you wanted to

Jack, you are a machine. (That is a compliment, btw). Now I have to ask a stupid question... what exactly do you mean by an "area called Analytics". Are you talking about Google Analytics or what exactly?

p.s. I took a quick look at your site (very impressive) and stole your idea for putting a "How To Join" link on the top bar. Thanks! This may be rather bold of me, but you might take a look at how I grouped the menu items on my site... for example, I put all the 'classmate-specific pages' all under a main menu item called "Classmate Pages". So under "Classmate Pages" you have classmate profiles, missing classmates, classmate forums, and our 'in memory' page. In this way, I have relatively few main menu items and I think it makes the site (well, mine anyway) aesthetically cleaner and easier to navigate. I just did this today (first time I had some spare time to take advantage of the new CC release) so I don't have any feedback yet from my classmates, but I think it's a lot better than what I had. Feel free to steal this idea if you think it's any good. Cheers!

Yes, it's the Google Analytics box on CC. I don't know exactly where that is since I'm not root (I have another solution). Any of the admins here can specifically tell you where this is now located. You can put other code there too. In this case style override code.

Thanks for the feedback. You are welcome to borrow anything you like. Our site is based on professional #4, but modified with code similar to what I just showed above. IOW, there's a lot you can do with the new CC designs.

There are 3 other admins, so I'm not exactly free to rearrange links But all the main links were done before the new features. I agree keeping link menus short is good, but keeping it within 1 page is a similar basic guideline.

I did multiple page navigation a bit different starting a few years ago. There is custom 'next page' code (or buttons). One of them that is viewable is BHS-Bothell history where all the 7 consecutive page links are internal + 3 more for a total of 10 vs a flyout menu that would (IMO) be too busy.

Flyouts are 'invisible' so although they look nice, do have a disadvantage for ease of knowing what's there. Touch screen systems like iPad, don't have a 'mouseover', making flyouts harder to use vs a WYSIWYG menu system.

But it's all a personal choice. That why customizations to suit one's own taste are so attractive and that's the whole beauty of the different sites.

I might do a flyout for the Reunion images for specific events once I get the images uploaded. Been busy making all the stuff work with the revised CC (I had to get into the styles since our site always was wider than stock CC). The zoom stuff took me a bit. Only got that finished to my satisfaction a few weeks ago.