I hate my LJ Theme.

[campylobacter]

I want to change my LJ theme, because I want my posts to have BLACK text on a white background in Verdana.

I've tried changing the CSS, but LJ isn't explicit on whether I'll be superseding a declaration in the cascade or replacing the entire style sheet, and I wind up with broken layout.

Isn't there a tutorial out there that's not CSS 101 (because I know CSS2 & XHTML), but LJ-specific? Or am I trying something only allowed on upgraded accounts?

GRRRRRRRRRRRR

Comments

[campylobacter.livejournal.com]

Whew! I was beginning to feel like I was teh dumb. It's probably that the volunteers running LJ just aren't into USABILITY -- they can't even make it apparent to geeks, let alone non-geeks.

I have a client I was doing a table-based website layout conversion to standards-compliant positional CSS, and he complained that he didn't want a "fragile" stylesheet that would break if he made changes to it.

I'm all "That's impossible if the majority of your users browse with various versions of Internet Explorer." Tried to explain that I was creating a stylesheet that would anticipate any formatting that he'd use, but he still didn't get it.

Argh.

[cleothemuse.livejournal.com]

Ugh... the client should never have any reason to make changes to the CSS... Content? Yes. CSS? No. Granted, I put plenty of notes and documentation in my style sheets, but that's so someone who knows WTF they're doing can make changes.

Talk about teh stupid...

[campylobacter.livejournal.com]

Absolutely agree 100%. I can barely keep up with all the browser bugs and the CSS hacks that work around them, let alone try to teach it to someone who hasn't seen a broken layout. I should charge a lot more per hour when I have to tutor. :-p

[cleothemuse.livejournal.com]

More and more programmers and designers have stopped trying to support backward compatibility. Heck, even the U.S. Army has finally upgraded their computers to use IE 8... if the masters of Hurry Up and Wait can get with the times, everyone else can, too.

[campylobacter.livejournal.com]

Knowing the demographic (and browser version) of the site's visitors is one of the main things I consider when developing a website, but I also keep hearing Jakob Nielsen, Jeff Zeldman, and Tim Berners-Lee whispering in my ear about making sites accessible to everyone. It's even harder when I'm contracted to make the site 508-compliant.

BTW, I'm using Google Chrome to post this. The only thing I'd improve in this browser would be better ad-blocking extensions. Well that, plus all the extensions I pimped out my Firefox with!