CSS and a lot of confusion

Hello,

I am at best an intermediate with XHTML and CSS, however, I am as beginner as they come in PHP.

My delima is this: I have tried to follow the instructions in several posts concerning editing the CSS files. I have disabled caching, I have edited common.css - general.css - and others. I am trying to simply add a background image for the site globally

body {

font-family:Verdana,Arial;

font-size:11px;

color:#333333;

        background-image:url ('../images/rnbg.bmp');

        background-attachment:fixed;

        background-repeat:repeat-y;

margin:0px;

padding:0 0 50px 0;    

}

I have added this code to the css editor in dolphin admin and etc... If someone could please point out to me the error of my ways I would appreciate it. I am at my wits end. The site works great but I need to change the aesthetics. 

This might still be a valid answer... http://www.boonex.com/forums/?action=goto&search=1#topic/Changing-background-image.htm

Use firebug you can temporarily edit the background from there and apply on the css later.

http://getfirebug.com/

"Making things possible"

I use firebug, and edit css and html with notepad. The confusion comes in not knowing which css files are actually formatting the site globally. What file would I edit to change the top title bar of page blocks globally? What css file edits the header, footer, page body? I want to effect global site changes.

You need to disable chaching and compression to use Firebug effectively.  Appending the CSS to /templates/tmpl_uni/css/*.css should override the one from /templates/base/css/.  The main page background is controlled from common.css.  Use your browser's developer tools to find all the things CSS files (after disabling that pesky caching).

Firebug tells you what file a css selector is in. You must however have css caching off on your site, otherwise firebug shows the cache file and not the actual css file.

Also there is no such thing as global changes. For example. The body is in common.css, some of the text colors are also in common.css. Other are in anchor.css and still others are in a css file belonging to one of the modules.

There is no single css file that can change everything on a global level. You must use firebug to find the exact file something is in. It's how the rest of us do it.

My other issue, as I have posted elsewhere. When I paid for the license the footer went away nice and neat. As soon as I added A mod though it came back and now re-entering my license will not take it away again. Also I would prefer to leave a footer, but just populate it with my own information.

That should not happen.

What mod was it?

I believe i recall certain templates that have caused something similar. Mostly free templates and templates offered by the hosting company that are not compatible with version of dolphin your running. But i have not heard of this happening with any modules.

It may also not even be a mod. Something may have changed on your server preventing communication with the boonex servers to verify the licence and the fact that you noticed it after the install of a module is coincidental. That possibility cannot be ruled out. Hosts perform updates of server software from time to time and although it should not affect websites, it sometimes unfortunately does. Hosts also make changes from time to time to improve or increase security which also can have asverse impact on websites running on the server. So you cannot rule out a hosting change that caused it.

Verify by resetting the licence at boonex so it becomes unregistered. Then remove the licence from admin in dolphin. Then log out of dolphin, clear browser cookies and cache, and the dolphin cache. Log back into dolphin via the admin back entrance and enter the licence when prompted. If it successfully registers it will show up registered to your domain on the boonex side when you view the licence. If the licence still shows up as unregistered when you view it on the boonex site then it's your server failing to allow communication with boonexes servers.

you are right it is not the mod... it is registrered to my domains ip and when i updated the ip to my domain this happened. will this process still work?

Yes. You need to reset the licence so it re-registers under the domain name.

That worked. Now I know. disable cahing, log out, clear cookies, log in, clear cache, register.

Thank god for firebug. It would be next to impossible without it. Such a complicated system of css files. Kinda blows the point of css (simplifying site aesthetics) I guess I can see the need as there are so many blocks that can or can not be called on different pages. Even with firebug though I have some difficulty when the css is being compiled per page Is there a firebug addon that can help locate particular *.css? when I am looking I see...

I stand corrected, I just needed to take the advice I have read in the forums here over and over again. disable caching when working with firebug. Now I can see the individual css. I love Dolphin 7x

I can't speak about earlier versions, but All the issues I have had are operator error. It is running smoothly. I did have one mod that didn't want to work, but nothing major. I even added webmediaservices game zone today. Took me less than 2 hours. Very simple to install. And I also appreciate the speed at which my errors are pointed out to me here. Thanks.