Changing text width and content background colour in twenty eleven

  • I am using the twenty eleven theme for my new site and i’ve got it all how i want it except for the content area.

    Rather than posts i am using pages only. It is set up as content on the left with a right sidebar, but i’m not using a sidebar at all, it’s just set that way because setting it as no sidebar narrows the side drastically.

    Anyway, the result is that the top, left and right margins are very big, so is there a way to widen the text area? Also, the text area is stark white, which is quite a contrast to the rest of the site and i’d like to have a very subtle colour as a background to all pages. Is there a way to do this simply?

    To see what i’m talking about, the site is https://www.tranquillitypublishing.com/wordpress

    Thanks

Viewing 15 replies - 1 through 15 (of 19 total)

  • That’s not a WordPress site…

    Thread Starter richwhite08

    (@richwhite08)

    Sorry Esmi, put the wrong link in – the company owner made a site through his domain, then we decided to use WP. I’ve changed the link now to take you to the correct place

    For starters, do not edit the Twenty Eleven theme. It is the default WordPress theme and having access to an unedited version of the theme is vital when dealing with a range of site issues. First create a child theme for your changes.

    Thread Starter richwhite08

    (@richwhite08)

    I’ve already modified the theme… only a bit, pretty much just the html colour in the menu actually i think. What’s bad about editing it?

    Please see my post above.

    Thread Starter richwhite08

    (@richwhite08)

    Ok, so is this true of all themes? i use itheme2 on another site and have modified that quite heavily.

    In theory, yes. All recent themes should be child friendly.

    Thread Starter richwhite08

    (@richwhite08)

    So if i make a child theme using the style.css of my edits, any updates to the parent theme will not affect the site? How do i select the child theme for the site, does it appear in my themes list separately?

    And do you have any advice on my original queries for when i get the child theme going?

    any updates to the parent theme will not affect the site?

    Correct.

    does it appear in my themes list separately?

    Yes – it appears just like any other theme.

    do you have any advice on my original queries

    They all look like pure CSS changes to me. I’d recommend using Firefox with the Firebug add-on for this kind of CSS work.
    https://getfirebug.com/

    Thread Starter richwhite08

    (@richwhite08)

    Firebug is all well and good, but i’m not sure what i’m looking for. Is it not just an area in the style.css file i can amend?

    You use Firebug to identify which block(s) of CSS you need to over write via the child’s stylesheet.

    Moderator cubecolour

    (@numeeja)

    Firebug is a tool to enable you to find out what you need to edit. You can also use the firefox web developer tools if you find it easier than firebug.

    Thread Starter richwhite08

    (@richwhite08)

    I know what it is, but i don’t know how to use it. I’ve installed it, and used Firefox’s web developer inspect option. Inspect shows div#main but that doesn’t appear in Firebug

    You DO need to learn how to use Firebug if you are going to make changes to a theme, but the code that is determining the width of that main section is — change the width to whatever you want:

    .singular .entry-header, .singular .entry-content, .singular footer.entry-meta, .singular #comments-title {
    margin: 0 auto;
    width: 68.9%;
}

    Do note, however that that CSS will change the width of all those IDs and classes — which may or may not be what you want.

    BTW, you have a bunch of really outdated and deprecated code in that page — see all the validation errors — many due to using the font tag.

    Thread Starter richwhite08

    (@richwhite08)

    WPyogi, thanks for the code, i’ll try that.

    Is there any harm in outdated and deprecated code? And how do i improve it?

Viewing 15 replies - 1 through 15 (of 19 total)
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