Random notes
FileZilla FTP
FileZilla FTP is an industry standard free program for connecting a home computer to web space (as if the web space is on the computer). To connect, it requires an FTP account at the web hosting provider. FTP accounts can easily be created in the control panel provided as part of a web hosting package. From then on, files can be just dragged across from one to the other. To manage a website, FTP access is more or less essential.
Text editor
A text editor program is also essential to edit web files. Windows Notepad can be used but doesn't have formatting. I use EditPlus for a small fee but there are good free ones, such as Text Editor.
Adobe Photoshop
A website with images requires Adobe Photoshop. There is no way around this. I rent it for a monthly fee £9.98 per month. It's absolutely worth it.
CSS style sheets
The main style sheet that determines the look in browsers is:
/wp-content/themes/worksunit/style.css
/wp-content/themes/worksunit/ is the 'path' from 'root' (francoisewauters.com) and style.css is a textfile with the fileending .css for a style sheet. This style sheet is exactly the same as the 'core' style sheet on all my other websites. They all have another style sheet however, named extra.css. This extra style sheet is loaded after style.css (the 'core' styles) and over-writes anything in it. So for example if an element has a specified colour in the core style sheet it can be modified in extra.css as being site-specific. The red box at the top is black in the core but has been modified to be red on this website (and others).
For info, the styles are specified as 'content box' which is the normal browser default. Some designers prefer 'border box'. Arguments both ways. I have stuck with the browser default which is also currently the W3C default – the World Wide Web Consortium that maintains web standards. Switching from one to the other is fine but it needs other style rules to be dimensioned differently so a bit of work involved.
Also for info, body { overflow-y: scroll; } is specified in style.css. This puts a vertical scrollbar in browsers even when the height of the content doesn't require it, in which case the scrollbar is empty but the space for it is always there. It means the width of the content is always the same.
JavaScript
JavaScript is a programming language for web browsers. The 'Works Unit' theme has several javascript files that should not be deleted, especially scrollbar-width.js because this file calculates the width of the browser viewport (the 'window') and feeds back into style.css for when the width of the scrollbar needs to be subtracted from other widths to make things fit properly. Other javascript files are needed for slides and other features.
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