Editing External CSS + Inline Styles

Hi,

I’m new to Freeway (Pro 5) and after a bit of searching in the forums I’m at a loss.

Is there a way to edit an external stylesheet created by FW?

My reason is that once I figured out you can create an external stylesheet (under document setup) I realized that FW still creates inline styles for divs which is something I’m not particularly fond of…

I’d like have all styles in an external stylesheet. Is this possible? Or, am I to assume I have to do this manually for each inline style? If the latter, how do I go about this?

I think I also saw a way to edit the name of the styles that FW provides… Is this correct? The goal here is rather than having a new style for every new instance of a heading (all the same size, color, etc.) I’d like to apply the same style or class so that when I change/modify the style, it is applied to every instance that is applied.

Thanks in advance,
Deb


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Due to the lack of Freeway’s Pro feature list, including full-CSS support, you’ll have to use the External StyleSheet Action / Convert to StyleSheet action to do so. It’s what makes up for what’s should be there and is an easy way to achieve what you’d like to do.

http://actionsforge.com/actions/view/23-ess-use-external-style-sheet

Both actions are included in the pack.

As far as stripping out the inline styles it’ll take an action to strip out the styles and you’ll have to manually copy the chunk of styles it puts under the CSS tag in the HTML document and then use the EES action and paste it in there then check the box to “disable embedded styles.”

Hopefully the forge will get updated with these new actions.


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On 30 Nov 2008, 6:45 am, Dan J wrote:

Due to the lack of Freeway’s Pro feature list, including full-CSS support, you’ll have to use the External StyleSheet Action / Convert to StyleSheet action to do so. It’s what makes up for what’s should be there and is an easy way to achieve what you’d like to do.

ESS-Use External Style Sheet - ActionsForge

Both actions are included in the pack.

As far as stripping out the inline styles it’ll take an action to strip out the styles and you’ll have to manually copy the chunk of styles it puts under the CSS tag in the HTML document and then use the EES action and paste it in there then check the box to “disable embedded styles.”

Hopefully the forge will get updated with these new actions.

Hi Dan – Before posting this thread, I downloaded the action you mention and realized that it is not compatible with FW5 Pro (just 3 and 4) so version 5 doesn’t even import the action.

While I know how to set up document with an external stylesheet I’m still trying to find out how to “disable embedded styles” that are still inline despite checking the External Stylesheet box under output.

If this is not possible in the current version then, I just need to know that.

The ESS External Stylesheet action just doesn’t seem compatible unless I’m really not doing something right when importing actions… It has an AC3 extension rather than an FWXXX extension.

Thanks.


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Sometime around 30/11/08 (at 03:07 -0500) yunpdx said:

If this is not possible in the current version then, I just need to know that.

Many things are possible if you’re willing to put in the effort
[grin], but I’m sure it is at least not exactly practical.

One benefit of having external object styles is to have control of
items across multiple pages. But Freeway currently doesn’t try to
manage element names across different pages, so you could have the
same name used for different items on different pages… two very
different things might be named “item2” on two different pages, for
example, which would make life ‘interesting’ with a cross-page CSS
style that tried to control something called “item2”.

Currently, the main way to control items is from within Freeway. It
then writes the styles necessary to make objects perform the way you
dictated in your layout. Perhaps in future Freeway will manage object
names across the whole site rather than just within a page. It seems
a logical step, but I’m sure that is something of a can o’ worms for
the Softpress developer crew to deal with.

(BTW, the ‘external stylesheets’ option relates specifically to text
styles. Object styles aren’t intended to be made external by this
option because of the above issues with element names.)

k


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HI yunpdx

As it stands Freeway uses the three methods of referencing a CSS style. Thats inline, In the head and on a separate style sheet. and even though you as a designer specify an external style sheet, Freeway will still use the other two methods when it isn’t able to write to the external.

Most of the inline style that you see in your code are item specific so to actually place them in an external style sheet wouldn’t reduce the quantity of styles that much, and the ones in the head tend to be generated by actions like CSS menu.

I too would like to see most if not all the styles in an external style sheet but at present it’s not possible or practical.

There are actions that remove the inline styles and place them in the head (Weavers has one) which work well but in the end it all comes down to whether you feel this is absolutely imperative.

max


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I downloaded the action you mention and realized that it is not compatible with FW5 Pro (just 3 and 4) so version 5 doesn’t even import the action

Generally speaking earlier versions of actions had the suffix .act3

If you take the action and change the file name suffix to .fwaction it should work with later versions of Freeway

David


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On 30 Nov 2008, 10:35 am, max wrote:

As it stands Freeway uses the three methods of referencing a CSS style. Thats inline, In the head and on a separate style sheet. and even though you as a designer specify an external style sheet, Freeway will still use the other two methods when it isn’t able to write to the external.

Thanks Max,

Hmmm… Good to know and an rather important point for those of us who are not afraid to get our hands dirty in the code… Wish I had known about this and I suppose my investigation of FW5 wasn’t thorough enough for my purposes. Perhaps my expectations were too high?

Most of the inline style that you see in your code are item specific so to actually place them in an external style sheet wouldn’t reduce the quantity of styles that much, and the ones in the head tend to be generated by actions like CSS menu.

I’m sure you already know the advantages of global stylesheets for layout and visual attributes so this is more my “record” for Softpress in case anyone reads this.

I suppose that depends on whether one’s sites are elaborate or not which would make a global stylesheet more effective and efficient for say updating a site’s overall look and feel. For smaller sites I suppose this isn’t a big deal but for sites with more pages and more content, updating could be really cumbersome.

I too would like to see most if not all the styles in an external style sheet but at present it’s not possible or practical.

I’ve been reading this thread
http://www.freewaytalk.net/thread/view/40126

and realize there are many people who would like the ability to have global styles in an external stylesheet. I wonder how the IE6/7 stylesheet is generated? I haven’t figured out to look at that either…

There are actions that remove the inline styles and place them in the head (Weavers has one) which work well but in the end it all comes down to whether you feel this is absolutely imperative.

I actually do feel it is imperative to have global styles; not that I am opposed to inline styles… So I guess I’ll have to wait and cross my fingers that Softpress deems this practical to make possible. FW is a really sweet idea and it would be ideal if the Pro version was more flexible depending on one’s level and comfort with programming.

If you take the action and change the file name suffix to .fwaction it should work with later versions of Freeway

Thanks David. I’ll try switching the extension and I’ll give this action a try. Maybe it resolves my “issue”.

Either way, thanks to all of you who responded. Seems like a great community.

thatKeith, thank you for the explanation as well. Really appreciate it!

Deb


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You can use Weaver’s Remove DIV Style action to strip all the inline
CSS from an element then manually add it to the stylesheet instead.

Todd

On Nov 29, 2008, at 5:32 PM, yunpdx wrote:

My reason is that once I figured out you can create an external
stylesheet (under document setup) I realized that FW still creates
inline styles for divs which is something I’m not particularly fond
of…

I’d like have all styles in an external stylesheet. Is this possible?
Or, am I to assume I have to do this manually for each inline style?
If the latter, how do I go about this?


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On 30 Nov 2008, 4:07 pm, Todd wrote:

You can use Weaver’s Remove DIV Style action to strip all the inline
CSS from an element then manually add it to the stylesheet instead.

Thanks Todd. I’ll take a look. Is there anything I need to keep in mind when using this action?

If I understand correctly, FW uses inline div/positioning/layout styles per page which makes me think there might be potential headaches (could be a small headache) by stripping them out.

Deb


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Hi Deb,

Here’s the link <http://www.coastalrugs.com/Actions/
misc.actions.html>. No, there’s nothing special to know about using
the action. Just apply it to each element you want to strip and create
the appropriate CSS using the styles menu to replicate the inline
stuff. Be sure to check your work frequently along the way since it’s
easy to overlook an attribute. It’s easy to use but a bit tedious.
It’s a must-have action for me since like you (and others) I really
dislike inline CSS.

Todd

On Nov 30, 2008, at 11:58 AM, yunpdx wrote:

On 30 Nov 2008, 4:07 pm, Todd wrote:

You can use Weaver’s Remove DIV Style action to strip all the inline
CSS from an element then manually add it to the stylesheet instead.

Thanks Todd. I’ll take a look. Is there anything I need to keep in
mind when using this action?

If I understand correctly, FW uses inline div/positioning/layout
styles per page which makes me think there might be potential
headaches (could be a small headache) by stripping them out.


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On 30 Nov 2008, 5:24 pm, Todd wrote:

Hi Deb,

Here’s the link <http://www.coastalrugs.com/Actions/
misc.actions.html>. No, there’s nothing special to know about using
the action. Just apply it to each element you want to strip and create
the appropriate CSS using the styles menu to replicate the inline
stuff. Be sure to check your work frequently along the way since it’s
easy to overlook an attribute. It’s easy to use but a bit tedious.
It’s a must-have action for me since like you (and others) I really
dislike inline CSS.

Todd

Thanks a lot Todd. Really appreciate your help!
– Deb


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The Action that Todd says to use will require you to go Item by Item and will take forever. Weaver did make a Page Item action and it works great. Perhaps he can post it on his site.


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On 30 Nov 2008, 7:11 pm, Dan J wrote:

The Action that Todd says to use will require you to go Item by Item and will take forever. Weaver did make a Page Item action and it works great. Perhaps he can post it on his site.

Item by item - yikes! :slight_smile:

If you are open to it Dan, maybe I can ping you offline to find out more about your workflow using CSSEdit?

Let me know.
Thanks,
deb


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I sent you an e-mail back about how it all goes. Hopefully that helps out.


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On 1 Dec 2008, 12:10 am, Dan J wrote:

I sent you an e-mail back about how it all goes. Hopefully that helps out.

I did get the email and I’ll be reading it with fresh eyes. Will let you know.
Thank you so much!
– deb


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Dan J,
I have been using CSS edit and Rage Web Design for some time and would be interested in your workflow integration with Freeway also.


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