V9: CSS problem after upload

[Decswitch]

Hi,

I'm having a bit of a css problem whilst in the midst of designing my decorative light switch shop.

I'm using Dreamweaver CS3 to edit my stylesheet and I have it registered with Actinic and so far so good.

My site shows correctly within DW and also within Actinic. However, when I upload the test site all the styles are lost. The css file is being uploaded to the site and it is correctly specified in the head of the html pages but for some reason the styles aren't being picked up.

Does anyone have any idea why it might be going screwy?

Regards, Rob.

[leehack]

I bet you are specifying background images in your stylesheet and the stylesheet fails to parse because of it. Have a look at your live stylesheet and i reckon you will see it is borked.

I have tried for hours to find out what causes this annoying bug and failed everytime, if you move just the background references where you are using an image as a background into the actinic stylesheet and out of yours, it will probably work straight away.

It's a crazy bug.

[jont]

Lee... what bug is this you are experiencing? I don't get any issues with background images in external sheets (only ever use external sheets now as makes for quicker coding)

[leehack]

I've always had it throughout V8 and V9, always annoyed me.

lets say i have this style in my external sheet:

#jonty {
margin: 0px;
padding: 0px;
color: #000000;
width: 751px;
background: #000000 url('nav-bg.jpg') no-repeat;
}

The preview in actinic will look fine, no problem, however once uploaded, the whole site is borked, my stylesheet fails to parse fully and is still full of actinic variables.

However if i add:

#jonty {
background: #000000 url('nav-bg.jpg') no-repeat;
}

into the actinic.css

and leave just:

#jonty {
margin: 0px;
padding: 0px;
color: #000000;
width: 751px;
}

in my stylesheet, it works perfectly.

I spent an hour on Wed trying to nail this down, trying all combos i could think of and still no good. Its very annoying, but if the style works perfecty in the actinic.css, it can't really be anything i am doing can it? It appears to me that as soon as you introduce single or double quotes into the stylesheet, it somehow stops the rest of the sheet from that point forward being parsed.

Solve it and make me a happy boy please.

[jont]

That is bonkers! Your code is fine so it is not that... particularly with div ID's.

Have you tried copying the actinic.css into the external and then removing the call in the outer layout, leaving just the external? If you look at the CSS on the site I showed you last night there is just the one main stylesheet (the other is for lightbox) and all the background images are in place and obviously working as they should do.

[jont]

introduce single or double quotes into the stylesheet, it somehow stops the rest of the sheet from that point forward being parsed

I still do this now as a throw back to the legacy days of Actinic not uploading the images from the site root so it is not that either.

[Darren B]

I have problems to, i have resorted to full url's in the style sheet. Or putting it in the actinic one

To be honest i thought it was me doing something wrong as usual

[jont]

Don't tell me my usually knackered version of Actinic is wrongly doing the correct thing

[leehack]

Have you tried copying the actinic.css into the external and then removing the call in the outer layout, leaving just the external? If you look at the CSS on the site I showed you last night there is just the one main stylesheet (the other is for lightbox) and all the background images are in place and obviously working as they should do.

I haven't tried copying over no as the actinic.css is the one i am having to use if i want background images to work for me. I have been slowly rationalising the actinic.css file and i am down to just over 200 lines now, with an ultimate aim to sod it off completely. At that stage i may find that my sheet needs to go into the actinic one so that it works, rather than the reverse.

I have tried single quotes, double quotes, images in root, images in subfolders, i've dissected css from addon companies see what they are doing. My code is correct as far as i can see, if not why work in one sheet and not another. It's a mystery i'd really love to solve as for ease of use i often end up with the styles in my stylesheet and all the background image parts lumped together at the bottom of actinic css.

The only other thing that i probably do a little bit different in my css is that i use actinic variables, however they are all perfect if there is no background image. When i leave an image in by mistake it always (bar none) trashes a site. I did it once yesterday on a site that takes 75 mins to upload, drives me bonkers.

To add even more peculiarity, the preview within actinic looks perfect, you only find out when you upload!

Bonkers it is.

[Darren B]

To add even more peculiarity, the preview within actinic looks perfect, you only find out when you upload!

Bonkers it is.

Hence why i resorted to full url's, which is fine to me but dont help a designer who is then going to pass it over to a customer on a different url

[jont]

The only other thing that i probably do a little bit different in my css is that i use actinic variables

You give the client the option to change your designs

[Darren B]

You give the client the option to change your designs

Depends how you look at it, perhaps it reduces the calls asking how to do it, maybe its more a damage limitation exercise.

[leehack]

You give the client the option to change your designs

Only certain parts, but yes. A typical example would be border color, i have my own variable for that and can style all border colors at once by using the variable, rather than adjust each one manually etc. Text size is another variable I use. There is about 10 I use in total. It kind of gives you a global CSS change, i'd recommend it on certain areas, it really helps.

[Decswitch]

Hi Lee,

Thanks for the info. You are right about me having bkground images specified in my css. I commented them out but no luck so far. I hadn't realised there was an actinic.css file as well as my actinic_styles.css file. I'd assumed I would just have the one to worry about. Slightly confused by this.

Should my overall layout in Dreamweaver be specifying actinic.css as well as my actinic_styles.css file?

Thanks in advance,
Rob.

[leehack]

You reference both yes, your styles don't style the inner layouts of actinic do they? if they do then get rid of actinic.css and just use your own.