Why two style sheets? Modern vs Styles

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Sean
Propeller Head
Posts: 57
Joined: Mon Apr 14, 2014 7:45 am

Why two style sheets? Modern vs Styles

Post by Sean »

Hi,

I looked in the online help and watched the videos. I get that Flare gives me a CSS by default. But, I see it gives me two! Modern and Styles.

Which do I use as my main style sheet? How is inheritance arranged between the two? What is each for? what's the difference between them? I only want to make my changes once, in one place, and not maintain changes in two different style sheets.

Can I remove one of these style sheets? Which one?

Thanks,

Sean

P.S. Flare 12. HTML 5 primary output.
Nita Beck
Senior Propellus Maximus
Posts: 3667
Joined: Thu Feb 02, 2006 9:57 am
Location: Pittsford, NY

Re: Why two style sheets? Modern vs Styles

Post by Nita Beck »

I assume you started your project with Flare's Empty template, as I am pretty sure that's the only factory template that includes the Modern.css stylesheet. The Empty template has a lot of files, not just stylesheets, that aren't really used anywhere but are ready for you *to* use if you so wish. (Just look in the Project Organizer > Advanced folder to see a whole slew of placeholder files.) As I told attendees of my MadWorld 2017 session on Flare factory templates, the Empty template isn't really empty...

I think MadCap's intention with the Empty template was to give an author different things to help jump start development. When I start with the Empty template, I end up throwing away a lot of stuff. (I should get smart and make a custom project template from my slimmed-down project based on Empty.)

If I'm off based and you didn't start with the Empty template, please give us a little more information. What template did you start with?
Nita
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RETIRED, but still fond of all the Flare friends I've made. See you around now and then!
Sean
Propeller Head
Posts: 57
Joined: Mon Apr 14, 2014 7:45 am

Re: Why two style sheets? Modern vs Styles

Post by Sean »

Hi,

I started by importing a FrameMaker book. Mapped everything. Told it not to keep FM styles. And then opened up the result.

I chucked it all away after some playing, because there were styles like, p.SeanFMStyleName but I wanted only p.

So, am retrying by starting a new project with no initial files. It is HTML 5, top nav, with PDF also. However, this, also, gives me two CSS files:

MainStyles.css
StylesForHomePage.css

What I want to know is which should I use. I only want one to start with. I plan on creating custom classes and then importing my FM book and mapping styles more meaningfully.

Thoughts? Why two styles and which should I pick?

Cheers,

Sean
Sean
Propeller Head
Posts: 57
Joined: Mon Apr 14, 2014 7:45 am

Re: Why two style sheets? Modern vs Styles

Post by Sean »

If it helps you imagine what I am seeing, the CSS called StylesForHomePage has body defined as "Arial" "12pt," whereas MainStyles.css has body defined as "Aruial, Avenir, Myriad" also "12pt".

Cheers.
Nita Beck
Senior Propellus Maximus
Posts: 3667
Joined: Thu Feb 02, 2006 9:57 am
Location: Pittsford, NY

Re: Why two style sheets? Modern vs Styles

Post by Nita Beck »

Those two other stylesheets are needed for Top Nav HTML5 output. The one named "StylesForHomePage.css" pertains only to the home page (aka the landing page) for your HTML5 outupt. The one named "MainStyles.css" will be for all the other pages in the Top Nav output.

You will need to edit both stylesheets to refine your Top Nav output. For example, for the font-family, I'd have exactly the same definition in each stylesheet.

Ultimately, you won't use the stylesheet that was created during import from FrameMaker, although you might end up copying styles out of it because you want to keep their styling; copy them in the MainStyles.css.

I do a lot of my stylesheet editing by hand, in the Internal Text Editor or even a third-party text editor, rather than through the Stylesheet editor.
Nita
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RETIRED, but still fond of all the Flare friends I've made. See you around now and then!
Sean
Propeller Head
Posts: 57
Joined: Mon Apr 14, 2014 7:45 am

Re: Why two style sheets? Modern vs Styles

Post by Sean »

Thank you. Am working on it.

Cheers,

Sean
Sean
Propeller Head
Posts: 57
Joined: Mon Apr 14, 2014 7:45 am

Re: Why two style sheets? Modern vs Styles

Post by Sean »

Thanks all. Gave up on that iteration. Doing over from scratch -- except I kept my CSS to reuse ;).
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