Change Background Color of Single Page in Topic

nfberg · Post by **nfberg** » Fri Feb 06, 2009 6:51 pm

I can't seem to find how one can change the background color of an entire page for webhelp output. All the layout docs refer to printed output.

What I am trying to do is create a landing page that has a solid background with our company logo and product name. The only solution I can figure out is to use a large image and let Flare scale to fit.

Thanks

Richard Ferrell · Post by **Richard Ferrell** » Sat Feb 07, 2009 10:01 am

Please see this Article in our Knowledge base.

http://kb.madcapsoftware.com/default_CSH.htm#OUTA1002F

You may want to add a Class to the Body for this one topic.

nfberg · Post by **nfberg** » Sat Feb 07, 2009 11:47 am

Thanks for the KB article...

Still having some difficulties.

I created a new class in the body with the background color desired and saved by right clicking body under the Styles found on the left side of the page. On the right side under Background > background-color I selected the color desired, saved.

In the topic with Show Blocks on right clicked the Body block and selected the new style class. The display changed to the desired background. Saved

Rebuilt and viewed, no change, the background color is still the default for the project. Verified that the proper Master Stylesheet is selected in the Target and all appropriate conditions have been included. When published I see the stylesheet.css file is uploaded in the change log. However when viewed from the published location there is no change.

To be safe I cleared the browser cache and reloaded, no change

To be complete I tried a different browser that had never been used to test the doc set, no change

To be extra paranoid and totally complete I used a different PC that had yet to be used for testing of the doc set, no change.

I must have missed something, any guidance is greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Post by **LTinker68** » Sat Feb 07, 2009 12:50 pm

nfberg wrote:I created a new class in the body with the background color desired and saved by right clicking body under the Styles found on the left side of the page. On the right side under Background > background-color I selected the color desired, saved.

Did you double-check that the Stylesheet Editor was set to the default medium and not the print medium when you made the change to the body class?

nfberg · Post by **nfberg** » Sat Feb 07, 2009 3:41 pm

LTinker68 wrote: Did you double-check that the Stylesheet Editor was set to the default medium and not the print medium when you made the change to the body class?

Just verified, yes the Stylesheet Editor is set to Medium: (default) along with the page I am working on and I made sure the Targets>Advanced Stylesheet Medium is also set to (default) and on the Basic tab the Master Stylesheet is set to one I use (it's also the only Stylesheet in the Stylesheets dir)

Post by **LTinker68** » Sat Feb 07, 2009 6:24 pm

Can you open the stylesheet file and post the code for the body style you created? And open the topic in the Internal Text Editor and paste the lines of code from the first line through the opening body tag?

nfberg · Post by **nfberg** » Sat Feb 07, 2009 7:39 pm

Wow...First, I cannot thank you enough for the help. I figured this would languish till Monday and I had no problem with that. These forums are proving invaluable.

Internal Text Editor Code:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<html xmlns:MadCap="http://www.madcapsoftware.com/Schemas/MadCap.xsd" MadCap:conditions="dto_conditions.Admin,dto_conditions.End_User,dto_conditions.Moderator,dto_conditions.Coordinator" MadCap:lastBlockDepth="2" MadCap:lastHeight="238" MadCap:lastWidth="1050" MadCap:conditionTagExpression="" class="">
<head>
<link href="Resources/Stylesheets/dto_style.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" style="background-color: #7f7f7f;" />
</head>
<body class="splash_page">

What has me totally confused at this point is the background color tag I specified is there. I'm speculating now that someplace in the build process I'm missing something as the background is not displaying when I view a build.

I think this the code for the body style I created:

body.splash_page
{
background-color: #7f7f7f;
}

It was found as the very last item when viewed in a text editor.

I'm starting to think maybe it's a conditions issue that I've missed someplace. This being my first major project in Flare that uses conditions quite possibly I am applying them incorrectly. The Topic count is not massive yet, experimenting with removing all conditions is my next step.

Again, thanks for the assistance.

Post by **LTinker68** » Sat Feb 07, 2009 8:10 pm

nfberg wrote: <head>
<link href="Resources/Stylesheets/dto_style.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" style="background-color: #7f7f7f;" />
</head>

Remove the style="background-color:#7f7f7f;" text from the link tag. I don't know as though it's causing the problem, but it shouldn't be there, so let's rule it out first. I'm not even sure how it got there.

nfberg · Post by **nfberg** » Sat Feb 07, 2009 8:34 pm

style="background-color:#7f7f7f;" has been removed. Saved, rebuilt and viewed. No change.

Reset the body style class back to default, saved. The background color in the XML editor area went back to white. For yucks rebuilt and viewed. Still white as always. That would be a good thing.

Reapplied the class I created to the body, background color changed as desired in the XML editor, saved. Checked file with the Internal Text Editor, style="background-color:#7f7f7f;" was NOT there this time. Rebuilt and viewed, still white. That would be a bad thing.

Thanks again for working this with me.

Post by **LTinker68** » Sun Feb 08, 2009 12:15 pm

After applying the new body class to the topic, did you delete the Output folder before building again? Doing that tricks the browser into loading the help from scratch instead of loading some elements from the cache.

If that doesn't work, try removing the underscore from the body class name. I don't know what the rules are for naming classes, other than you can't use a space, but maybe an underscore isn't allowed. I combine multiple words into one word and use a mix of upper- and lowercase letters to make it easier to read. For instance, I'd name your body class splashPage.

nfberg · Post by **nfberg** » Sun Feb 08, 2009 4:23 pm

1. No, I had never cleared the output folder. This was a new trick to me. That said, no change. I even cleared my browser cache, cookies and temp files. However, cleaning the output is going into regular rotation as part of the build process now, it may take a few minutes longer but I'm hoping it will ensure I have the latest and greatest.

2. The underscore should not matter, MadCap adds them when auto-creating new classes from a Word.doc import, at least that happened here. But to be on the safe side I went ahead and was probably over anal in this process of deleting the class with the underscore in the name, saved, closed Flare, opened Flare and then created the new class again, this time without the underscore. Still no change in the view or published version.

Thanks again for all the help, I'm going to create a support ticket on this with Madcap. I'll post the results.

Post by **NorthEast** » Mon Feb 09, 2009 2:59 am

I had this problem too.
The reason it isn't working is that Flare does not carry the body class for the topic through to the output. If you check the topic in the output (right-click, View source), then you'll find that the body tag has no class.

To use a body class in your output, you need to set it on the master page.

To do this:

1) Create a new master page, e.g. splash.flmsp.
2) In the master page, set the body class to splash_page (or whatever it's called).
3) In your stylesheet, add a new html class, e.g. html.splash. Set its mc-master-page property to splash.
4) In your topic, set the html tag class to splash.

That means your topic will use the splash master page.

Post by **LTinker68** » Mon Feb 09, 2009 8:55 am

That sounds like a good KB article. Unless there is one already -- I didn't look.

That's a bug, though -- if you're not using any masterpages then you shouldn't need to create them to modify the body tag. Even if you're using masterpages, the inline body tag should override the body tag of the masterpage.

Post by **NorthEast** » Mon Feb 09, 2009 9:06 am

Yeah, I don't know if it's a bug or not, you can argue that it should work either way.

As your topic content goes inside the master page (in the body proxy), then you could argue that the body tag for the whole page 'belongs' to the master page.

nfberg · Post by **nfberg** » Mon Feb 09, 2009 1:58 pm

Issue resolved. Madcap again provides a level of support all software companies could learn from.

The fix or workaround for this issue:

Create a new html class with desired background color and apply to the desired topic.

Post by **LTinker68** » Mon Feb 09, 2009 2:38 pm

Something changed then, because the KB article Rick referenced above mentions the body tag, not the html tag. Plus you shouldn't need to set it at the html tag, you should be able to set it on the body tag.

KevinDAmery · Post by **KevinDAmery** » Tue Feb 10, 2009 6:54 am

The method that Dave is describing is the one that lets you use multiple master pages in a target. I use this to put different banners across the top of each topic to let readers know which part of the application the topic applies to. It should also work for background colour and other formatting.

The advantage of this method is that you don't have to perform any HTML surgery: you can assign the class in the properties of the topic using a pulldown.

Post by **NorthEast** » Tue Feb 10, 2009 8:07 am

Yep, it has a few benefits - as Kevin says you can select the topic 'type' (html class) from it's properties, so you can set it for multiple topics in one go; and the File List shows the topic (html) class, so you see at-a-glance what each topic's 'type' is.

knichols · Post by **knichols** » Wed Feb 25, 2009 10:22 am

I have tried to change the background color of two topics into a different color than the standard one in my skin and standard style. I have tried:

* creating both a body style class, with the different background color
* creating a separate master page, with an html style associated with this master page that has the different background color
* opening the two topics in a text editor and hard-coding the different background color into the body style.

Though the topics do show the different background color, when I build the help, both topics do not display the different background color - they return to the background color in the standard style sheet and skin.

Does anyone know why my different background color on my two topics is being removed when I build the help?

Post by **LTinker68** » Wed Feb 25, 2009 10:39 am

Hmmm. Open the compiled help in a web browser and look at the source code for the page. Does the reference to MadCap.css come after the reference to your topic stylesheet?

knichols · Post by **knichols** » Wed Feb 25, 2009 1:08 pm

Hm.... I'm not entirely sure (forgive my ignorance).

Here is the code that displays when I ask for source on the topic's page in help - it does seem to refer to the topic first, then the skin - but doesn't mention madcap.css.

Am I looking in the right place?

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Frameset//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-frameset.dtd">
<html xmlns:MadCap="http://www.madcapsoftware.com/Schemas/MadCap.xsd">

<head>
<title>WebHelp</title>
<script id="MCGlobals" type="text/javascript">/*<![CDATA[*/var gSubsystemFile = "Default.xml";
var gSkinFolder = "Data/Skinmidnight2sm/";
var gSkinTemplateFolder = "Skin/";
var gDefaultStartTopic = "Content/Welcome/Welcome.htm";
/*]]>*/</script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="Content/SkinSupport/MadCapUtilities.js">
</script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="Content/SkinSupport/MadCapMerging.js">
</script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="Content/SkinSupport/MadCapAliasFile.js">
</script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="Content/SkinSupport/MadCapHighlighter.js">
</script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="Content/SkinSupport/MadCapDefault.js">
</script>
</head>
<frameset rows="30, *" border="1" framespacing="0">
<frame name="mctoolbar" title="Toolbar" src="Skin/Toolbar.htm" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" noresize="noresize" />
<frameset border="4" framespacing="2" cols="200, *">
<frame name="navigation" title="Navigation" src="Skin/Navigation.htm" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" onresize="frames['navigation'].SetIFrameHeight();" />
<frame name="body" title="Topic" frameborder="1" src="Skin/Blank.htm" />
</frameset>
</frameset>
</html>

Post by **LTinker68** » Wed Feb 25, 2009 1:51 pm

Well, you need to get rid of those color tags that appear before the doctype declaration at the top of the page and after the closing html tag at the end of the page.

The code you're showing is the code for the frameset. What's the code for a topic? If you open the help in a browser, then right-click on the topic area of the page, there will be a menu option related to "This Frame". Click in there and ask for the source code for that frame. That'll be the source code for that topic, and will look fairly close to the code you see when you open a topic in Flare using the Internal Text Editor. Some additional lines of code will be added at build time, which is why you need to look at the topic in the output and not in the Flare authoring environment to see where the MadCap.css file is referenced in relation to your topic stylesheet.

knichols · Post by **knichols** » Wed Feb 25, 2009 1:59 pm

Sorry about the color tags - I accidently added those when I was trying to make the text on this posting a different color - they are not in the actual code.

Here is the code for the topic - as you can see I have tried to change the colors in the stlesheet, masterpage, and then hard-coded the new color in the body tag:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns:MadCap="http://www.madcapsoftware.com/Schemas/MadCap.xsd" MadCap:lastBlockDepth="5" MadCap:lastHeight="80" MadCap:lastWidth="1294" MadCap:conditionTagExpression="" MadCap:disableMasterStylesheet="true" MadCap:tocPath="Welcome" class="grey_bckgrd" MadCap:PathToHelpSystem="../../" MadCap:SearchType="Stem">

<head><title>Welcome!</title>
<link href="../Resources/Stylesheets/A&R.css" rel="stylesheet" />
<script src="../SkinSupport/MadCapUtilities.js">
</script>
<script src="../SkinSupport/MadCapBody.js">
</script>
<script src="../SkinSupport/MadCapHighlighter.js">
</script>
</head>
<body style="background-color: #dbe3e0;">
<h1 style="color: #ffffff;">Welcome!<a name="kanchor1"></a></h1>
<p style="color: #ffffff;">Welcome to <span style="color: #203838; font-weight: bold;">Audit and Recovery (A<span style="font-size: 10pt;">&</span>R)</span>, the
post claim audit system that gives you the power to recover millions in lost claims transaction funds.
<img src="../Resources/Images/Symbol Help 2 (3).png" />For more information on how to use the <span style="color: #203838; font-weight: bold;">Audit and Recovery (A<span style="font-size: 10pt;">&</span>R)</span> system, please select from the following:</p>
<p style="color: #ffffff;"> </p>
<table style="caption-side: top;border-spacing: 0px 0px;border-left-style: none;border-left-width: 2px;border-left-color: #a9a9a9; border-right-style: none;border-right-width: 2px;border-right-color: #a9a9a9;border-top-style: none;border-top-width: 2px;border-top-color: #a9a9a9; border-bottom-style: double;border-bottom-width: 2px;border-bottom-color: #a9a9a9;">
<tbody>
<tr>
<th style="background-color: #dbe3e0; border-left-style: solid;border-left-width: 0.1em; border-left-color: #a9a9a9; border-right-style: solid;border-right-width: 0.10em;border-right-color: #a9a9a9; border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 0.1em;border-top-color: #a9a9a9;border-bottom-style: solid;border-bottom-width: 0.10em;border-bottom-color: #a9a9a9;">
<img src="../Resources/Images/A&R main gr.png" />
</th>
<td style="padding-left: 1.5em; background-color: #dbe3e0; border-left-style: solid;border-left-width: 0.1em;border-left-color: #a9a9a9;border-right-style: solid;border-right-width: 0.10em;border-right-color: #a9a9a9;border-top-style: solid;border-top-width: 0.1em;border-top-color: #a9a9a9;border-bottom-style: solid;border-bottom-width: 0.10em;border-bottom-color: #a9a9a9;"><a style="font-weight: bold;" href="Intro AR.htm">Introducing Audit and Recovery ( A&R)</a>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th style="background-color: #dbe3e0; border-left-style: solid;border-left-width: 0.1em; border-left-color: #a9a9a9;border-right-style: solid;border-right-width: 0.10em;border-right-color: #a9a9a9; border-top-style: solid;border-top-width: 0.1em;border-top-color: #a9a9a9;border-bottom-style: solid;border-bottom-width: 0.10em;border-bottom-color: #a9a9a9;">
<img src="../Resources/Images/A&R Tutr gr.png" />
</th>
<td style="background-color: #dbe3e0; border-left-style: solid;border-left-width: 0.1em;border-left-color: #a9a9a9;border-right-style: solid;border-right-width: 0.10em;border-right-color: #a9a9a9;border-top-style: solid;border-top-width: 0.1em;border-top-color: #a9a9a9;border-bottom-style: solid;border-bottom-width: 0.10em;border-bottom-color: #a9a9a9;">
<p MadCap:conditions="Client Help.ClientOnly"><a href="../Tutorials/Client A&R Flowchart.htm" style="font-weight: bold;" MadCap:conditions="Client Help.ClientOnly">Learn A&R</a>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p MadCap:conditions="Client Help.InternalUser"><a href="../Tutorials/A&R Flowcht.htm" style="font-weight: bold;" MadCap:conditions="Client Help.InternalUser">Learn A&R</a>
</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th style="background-color: #dbe3e0; border-left-style: solid;border-left-width: 0.1em; border-left-color: #a9a9a9; border-right-style: solid;border-right-width: 0.10em;border-right-color: #a9a9a9; border-top-style: solid;border-top-width: 0.1em;border-top-color: #a9a9a9;border-bottom-style: solid;border-bottom-width: 0.10em; border-bottom-color: #a9a9a9;">
<img src="../Resources/Images/A&R Tour gr.png" />
</th>
<td style="background-color: #dbe3e0; border-left-style: solid;border-left-width: 0.1em;border-left-color: #a9a9a9; border-right-style: solid;border-right-width: 0.10em;border-right-color: #a9a9a9;border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 0.1em;border-top-color: #a9a9a9;border-bottom-style: solid;border-bottom-width: 0.10em;border-bottom-color: #a9a9a9;">
<p><b><a href="../A Tour of A&R/A Tour of A&R.htm" title=" an introduction to the ReClaim user interface" alt=" an introduction to the ReClaim user interface">A Tour of A&R</a></b>
</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th style="background-color: #dbe3e0; border-left-style: solid;border-left-width: 0.1em; border-left-color: #a9a9a9; border-right-style: solid;border-right-width: 0.10em;border-right-color: #a9a9a9; border-top-style: solid;border-top-width: 0.1em;border-top-color: #a9a9a9;border-bottom-style: solid;border-bottom-width: 0.10em; border-bottom-color: #a9a9a9;">
<img src="../Resources/Images/A&R Help gr.png" />
</th>
<td style="background-color: #dbe3e0; border-left-style: solid;border-left-width: 0.1em; border-left-color: #a9a9a9;border-right-style: solid;border-right-width: 0.10em;border-right-color: #a9a9a9;border-top-style: solid;border-top-width: 0.1em; border-top-color: #a9a9a9;border-bottom-style: solid;border-bottom-width: 0.10em;border-bottom-color: #a9a9a9;">
<p><a href="../Help/Help.htm" style="font-weight: bold;">Get Help</a>
</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th style="background-color: #dbe3e0; border-left-style: solid;border-left-width: 0.1em; border-left-color: #a9a9a9; border-right-style: solid;border-right-width: 0.10em;border-right-color: #a9a9a9; border-top-style: solid;border-top-width: 0.1em;border-top-color: #a9a9a9;border-bottom-style: solid;border-bottom-width: 0.10em; border-bottom-color: #a9a9a9;">
<img src="../Resources/Images/A&R HDI gr.png" />
</th>
<td style="padding-left: 1.5em; background-color: #dbe3e0; border-left-style: solid;border-left-width: 0.1em;border-left-color: #a9a9a9;border-right-style: solid;border-right-width: 0.10em;border-right-color: #a9a9a9;border-top-style: solid;border-top-width: 0.1em;border-top-color: #a9a9a9;border-bottom-style: solid;border-bottom-width: 0.10em;border-bottom-color: #a9a9a9;"><a style="font-weight: bold;" href="../How To/How To.htm">How Do I?</a>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th style="background-color: #dbe3e0; border-left-style: solid;border-left-width: 0.1em; border-left-color: #a9a9a9; border-right-style: solid;border-right-width: 0.10em;border-right-color: #a9a9a9; border-top-style: solid;border-top-width: 0.1em;border-top-color: #a9a9a9;border-bottom-style: solid;border-bottom-width: 0.10em; border-bottom-color: #a9a9a9;">
<img src="../Resources/Images/A&R RTI ic gr.png" />
</th>
<td style="background-color: #dbe3e0; padding-right: 1em; border-left-style: solid;border-left-width: 0.1em;border-left-color: #a9a9a9;border-right-style: solid;border-right-width: 0.10em;border-right-color: #a9a9a9;border-top-style: solid;border-top-width: 0.1em;border-top-color: #a9a9a9;border-bottom-style: solid;border-bottom-width: 0.10em;border-bottom-color: #a9a9a9;"><a href="Contact Us.htm" style="font-weight: bold;">Contact Us</a>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p> </p>
<div style="width: 100%;position: relative;">
<p style="text-align: center;font-size: 8pt;color: #808080;" align="center"><a name="kanchor2"></a>Copyright Â©
2009 Reassure Technologies International.</p>
</div>
<script type="text/javascript" src="../SkinSupport/MadCapBodyEnd.js">
</script>
</body>
</html>

Any input would be much appreciated,

K Nichols

Post by **LTinker68** » Wed Feb 25, 2009 2:13 pm

If you create a brand new project from scratch and don't do anything except to set a background-color on the body tag for the default medium and build the WebHelp output, does that work?

knichols · Post by **knichols** » Wed Feb 25, 2009 2:39 pm

Yes, I can change the background color. I have changed it several times in the project - the main default background color in the style is changeable.

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