Plugin
MyCSS
Description
MyCSS is a WordPress plugin that allows you to attach your personal CSS stylesheet to your blog, regardless of the theme you might be using.
Features
- imports user-defined stylesheet, independent of blog theme used
- provides convenient stylesheet editor in admin panel for fast editing
- does not write anything to your WordPress database
Review
Without doubt, MyCSS is an extremely useful plugin, because if you are using a ready-made theme, then you’ll always need to add new styles to it to support the many plugins you have.
I design my own themes and create an extra stylesheet that is independent of the theme called userstyles.css which I then include in the main style.css.
This plugin makes it easier for you to manage these styles and keep it independent of the theme you are using (very useful if you let visitors select themes).
Installation is easy, however, you have to make the my.css file that is included in the plugin writable. The plugin warns you if this is not the case. You can then edit the file via the Presentation menu.
Having the seperate CSS file makes it possible for you to edit it yourself by logging into your account via FTP, in case you don’t want to give write permissions and use the plugin only to include the CSS code.
One point that you need to remember is to avoid using this document to color elements. This is because if you’re different themes have contrasting colors, then the elements styled via my.css will not fit into the different themes.
However, one more tip here is that when styling the foreground, always add a background color too.
Again, this is a plugin for intermediate users. Advanced users like me will continue using a CSS file in the main theme. Real beginners (new to CSS) may find a problem with adding their own styles (unless it is given to them).
Do you think you would use this? Are you already using it?
This actually one of my ‘saved the blog’ plugins – which means I don’t know what to do without it. It’s great for styling plugin classes for one thing, and I use it for creating css classes for aligning images and other text, so this won’t break I switch themes.
THis is a great plugin. I can use this to keep certain customized styles that might or might not be in any theme that I may try. Earlier, each time I changed my theme, I had to redo those changes.
Wish there were something similar for the other PHP files. Wanna give it a shot? In fact is it doable in the first place?
What exactly are you looking for wrt PHP files??
Ok, here are a few instances where such a plugin would be of good use:
1. In my header.php, I have meta tags and code for Google Analytics and Google Domain Verification.
2. In the same file, I have specified keywords and escription for my blog
3. In index.php, I use a customized tag. In place of the default, I prefer using “Continue Reading (right arrow)”
I know there are plugins available to perform most of these tasks, but why not have just one plugin that can recreate all these in one go each time a new theme is used.
I guess a single plugin can handle your first two points. I think they exist.
Regarding point 3, that can be edited in the theme file itself, as it is built into WP
Your answer to point 3 is the purpose for which a plugin would do great. Each time I change the theme, I have to reinsert this line.
Man; what you can do is to delete the WP default theme, and rename the folder of your base theme to default. Now, for your theme 2, 3 etc. delete their header.php. This way theme 2, 3 etc will load the header.php located in your default folder. However, you may need to check the html of theme 2 + to make sure it is set up the same way as some themes loads the div#content in the header, while others don’t.
As for 3, in wp 2.1 you can specify the text you’d like in the more tag, like <!–more Continue Reading (right arrow)–>
I have already created something like this.
http://www.siolon.com/2007/per.....es-plugin/
Kristin: Brilliant workaround. thanks a lot.
Chris: Let me try out the plugin you have developed, will let you know once I am through.