Stylesheet got hosed after one change

[General Confusion]

Good morning.

I made one change to my stylesheet, and that was to remove the underline from my print medium hyperlinks (love this forum; can't remember who's post showed where that was hidden, but much thanks). When I next generated my html target, my hyperlinks and cross references were blue instead of green, my background color had been removed, and my lists did not have any vertical spacing between the list items . That's all I've noticed so far, but it's enough.

I don't remember if I was in V3 or V4 (long story; I go back and forth between the two versions), and I don't know if it matters, but I thought I'd mention it.

I've fixed - I hope - the color and underline issue, but It's been a LONG time since I initially set up my stylesheet, and I can't for the life of me remember how to fix my list so the items have vertical spacing. Please help!

[RamonS]

While I cannot help you with the specific issue I can only highly recommend to make frequent backups for now unfortunately obvious reasons.
When you say you switch between versions, do you use the same project in both versions or do you have multiple projects of which some are in V3 and some in V4?

[General Confusion]

Hi Simon

Ironically, I do back up frequently, but overwrite every other one and didn't notice the problem before banishing my original settings to the atmosphere.

I have one project, and find the constantly-running analyzer and the new text-pasting popup annoying distractions. I typically only go into V4 when I'm building.

Not being a professional, I try to keep things very basic and use only what I need to get my output. CSS sends my blood pressure skyrocketing, and now I'm trying to remember everything I did a year and a half ago. It's a bit painful.

[LTinker68]

Double-check that you didn't make the change to the base <a> tag's pseudo-classes but instead modified the pseudo-classes for the correct class under the <a> tag.

[General Confusion]

Thanks for your reply.

The only hyperlink class I use is the <a> tag. Maybe I'm misunderstanding.

As I started browsing through my stylesheet, it seems that all of my modifications and classes got wiped out. Somewhat fortunately, I still have my old stylesheet, which used a different font for printed headings. I've opened that old one and have changed the printed font. There are a few more minor things I think I need to do, but it's better than rebuilding.

I'm thinking of two options to apply this stylesheet: either visit the properties of each topic and change it there (daunting at best), or rename the destroyed one, then rename my old one to the destroyed one's name. Unless of course, someone has a more efficient solution...?

[LTinker68]

As I started browsing through my stylesheet, it seems that all of my modifications and classes got wiped out.

How are you "browsing" the stylesheet? Do you mean when you look at it in the Stylesheet Editor there doesn't seem to be as many styles, or do you mean you opened the file in the Internal Text Editor and there are styles missing? If you're looking in the Stylesheet Editor, the number of tags that are shown depends on the "Show" options at the top of the editor (and whether you're in Basic or Advanced view). To see what's actually in the stylesheet file, open it in the Internal Text Editor.

[General Confusion]

I mean when I look at my <h1> and <p> tags, the classes i created are gone (I always have it set to "Show all styles"). I enjoyed setting up my stylesheet about as much as I enjoy a tooth extraction, so I stay out of it, except for that one little change to remove an underline from printed output. I had also finally figured out how to get a master page working for my printed output, and now that's probably destroyed as well, because it's not using the header and footer style classes because they no longer exist (I say "probably" because I haven't yet found out how to specify a stylesheet for my master page - it's not in properties). All apologies for whining, but this has been a pretty big blow.

[SteveS]

While I can't add anything to the discussion, I would like to suggest avoiding working between III and IV - there is some stuff in IV that is not backwards compatable. I'm wondering if you made a change in IV that has broken when opening in III, causing a problem when you try to re-open in IV

[RamonS]

And just to get back to the backup issue...when you are done with fixing the CSS make a copy of just that file or email it to yourself. Or even better...use source control, although based on what I read that is another truckload of worm cans with Flare.

[General Confusion]

...I'm wondering if you made a change in IV that has broken when opening in III, causing a problem when you try to re-open in IV

That may very well be what happened; never even crossed my mind. I've got a case into tech support, but what's gone is gone - lesson learned.

I tried importing some of the classes from my old stylesheet, but only a few came in. That's also been mentioned in my case to tech support, but have any of you experienced a problem with importing?

And just to get back to the backup issue...when you are done with fixing the CSS make a copy of just that file or email it to yourself. Or even better...use source control, although based on what I read that is another truckload of worm cans with Flare.

Will do. I'm not familiar with source control, but sounds like the old-fashioned way of security is the way to go.



Thanks to all for your input, and best wishes for the new year!

[LTinker68]

...I'm wondering if you made a change in IV that has broken when opening in III, causing a problem when you try to re-open in IV

That may very well be what happened; never even crossed my mind. I've got a case into tech support, but what's gone is gone - lesson learned.

When I was first playing with the new version and tried going back-and-forth, it seemed like it would delete the styles after a certain point. Version 4 automatically adds some of the MadCap|.... styles to the stylesheet, which weren't in v3. If you add some styles after that point in the stylesheet, then the MadCap|.... styles and everything after it were deleted. At least it seemed to be that way to me -- didn't really study it that in-depth.

But, yes, don't switch between v3 and v4 once you've opened the project in v4.

[General Confusion]

No more.

I've rebuilt my CSS using the settings from my old stylesheet. I'm getting a little crazy with a formatting issue, however, and hope you can point me in the right direction.

I opened my master pages with the internal text editor and changed the name of the stylesheet to the one I'm using now (properties does not offer that on master pages and snippets; ugh). The one I'm using now uses a Maiandra font for printed headers and footers. I have two each of p_ header and footer classes (one right; one left) which are set to the correct font, and i've gone to the MadCap Page Footer and Page Header tags and their subclasses and have set the font the same. When I look at my master pages, however, they are still using the old font. I've done this all in my print medium. What am I missing?

[General Confusion]

FOUND IT.

when i switched to default medium, the old font was still there. I made the change and it's now reflected in my master page. Thanks anyway!