CSS Page Builder Magic User Guide
CSS Page Builder Magic User Guide
Contents
Install the extension .............................................................................................................................. 4
2
3 Install the extension
Snail mail.................................................................................................................................... 26
3
4 Install the extension
OS X users: If, upon double-clicking the installer, Extension Manager does not properly launch, you have a file
association issue. To remedy the problem locate the installer file from inside a Finder window and double-click it.
Site Name
The name that appears in the Files panel and in the Manage Sites dialog box; it does not appear in the browser.
4
5 Creating a Page Builder Magic page
Select a layout from the Page Design column and the Preview image will change to reflect your choice. Click the
Create button. The Save As dialog will open. Browse to a folder within your current Dreamweaver-defined site so
that it appears in the Save in box. Enter a File name and click Save.
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6 Page Builder Head Content
6
7 Site Wide Management
IE Conditional Comments
<!--[if lte IE 7]>
<style>
.menutop li, .thumbs p {display: inline;}
div, .menuside a {zoom: 1;}
.masthead .banner {width: 100%;}
</style>
<![endif]-->
Special style rules carried inside Microsoft conditional comments to fix CSS issues for versions less than or equal to
IE 7.
Assets folders
When your page is created, the Page Pack system generates the following folders
p7csspbm
This folder contains your Page Builder Magic CSS files and script
o img
This sub-folder contains a single file, the sample banner image used in all Page Builder Magic
pages.
p7ehc
This folder contains the PVII Equal Height Columns script
The Page Pack system will create these folders in the same folder where you save your Page Pack page. This is a
workflow feature that enables you to create multiple testing folders in which to play—but you must be mindful of
where your relevant assets folders are when you ultimately publish your page or when you edit assets.
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8 Page Builder Magic on mobile devices
8
9 Advanced CSS Effects
Note: CSS3 border-radius is supported by modern browsers including Firefox 4, Opera 11, Safari 5, Chrome 2, and IE9.
Older browsers default to rectangular corners
border-radius syntax
Consider the declaration:
border-radius: 6px;
It creates a 6px radius curve at all 4 corners, which is expressed with a single value.
Tip: To increase the amount of curve, increase the radius value. To decrease the curve, reduce it.
You can also set a unique radius for each corner of an element. The border-radius property allows for 4 separate
values, one for each corner. The values are expressed starting with the top-left and moving clockwise to the top-
right, the bottom-right, and the bottom-left. While we don't use this technique in Page Builder Magic, it can come
in handy.
9
10 Advanced CSS Effects
CSS shadows
The CSS box-shadow property is expressed using 3 properties. The first 2 are proprietary browser-specific names
and the third one is the actual W3C specified CSS3 name:
1. -webkit-box-shadow — Safari (Safari 6 will offer support for the default box-shadow syntax)
2. box-shadow — Firefox, Chrome, Opera and IE9
Note: CSS3 box-shadow is supported by modern browsers including Firefox, Opera, Safari, Chrome, and IE9.
box-shadow syntax
The box-shadow property is extremely powerful and far more nuanced than border-radius. We'll cover some basics
and how it's used in Page Builder Magic. For additional insight, we recommend reading the W3C specification.
Consider this simple rule:
.theDIV {
box-shadow: 10px 10px 20px #000;
}
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11 Advanced CSS Effects
Your RGB numbers are listed as the Red, Green, Blue values: 102, 204, 102. So change your color value to:
rgba(102,204,102,1);
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12 Advanced CSS Effects
Remember, the "1" at the end is the alpha value and means your color is fully opaque (no transparency). To set
transparency, choose a decimal value between 1 and 0. For example, to set 50% transparency, your values would
be:
rgba(102,204,102,.5);
You can deploy this method using a single contextual style rule to, for example, affect all images inside your main
content DIV:
div.main-content img {
max-width: 100%;
}
You can also deploy this method using a class that can be assigned to individual images:
img.dynasize {
max-width: 100%;
}
Simply apply the dynasize class to one or more images.
12
13 CSS Layout Columns
13
14 Editing Text Attributes
Sidebar and sidebar2 are grouped together in a single rule. Should you want separate attributes, create a separate
rule for each:
.sidebar .content { }
.sidebar2 .content { }
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15 Page Builder Magic CSS fundamentals
Web designers with intermediate or advanced CSS skills will find it very easy to customize your Page Builder Magic
pages. If you are a beginner, you should be able to undertake many customizations after reading this user guide. In
fact, you should print this guide and keep it handy as a desktop reference. All 16 CSS files are very similar.
Understand one and you will easily understand them all.
Let's look at the CSS file for Layout 5, p7csspbm_05.css:
Rule-by-Rule Analysis
body {
font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Grande", sans-serif;
color: #000;
background-color: #FFFFFF;
margin: 20px 0;
padding: 0px;
min-width: 800px;
}
Use the body rule to change font attributes, background, and whitespace (margin and padding) globally for your
page. Min-width determines the point at which your layout width will cease to shrink horizontally and your
browser will spawn a horizontal scroll bar.
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16 Page Builder Magic CSS fundamentals
.masthead {
background-color: #222
text-align: left;
position: relative;
z-index: 9999999;
}
You can change the background-color of the masthead to suit. Use the text-align property to align text or image
elements inside the masthead left, center, or right. Do not edit the position or z-index properties.
.masthead .banner {
height: 120px;
overflow: hidden;
}
We set height and overflow hidden to allow you place an image in the banner that would normally be too large.
You can edit or remove this rule if you are using a fixed-width layout and design your banner image to fit.
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17 Page Builder Magic CSS fundamentals
.content-wrapper {
border: 1px solid #222;
margin: 0 20px;
-webkit-box-shadow: 0 0 20px #999;
box-shadow: 0 0 20px #999;
}
The .content-wrapper is the main layout container. The entire page is inside this element. We assign a 1 pixel
border to surround the entire layout. We also assign a box-shadow effect.
.columns-wrapper {
overflow: hidden;
background-color: #FFF;
}
The .columns-wrapper is the containing element for the the main content columns. We set this area to have a
white background. This means that any individual column that is not assigned a specific background-color, will be
white. Overflow must remain hidden in order for your columns to remain equal height. Use this rule when you
want to change the background of your main-content column.
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18 Page Builder Magic CSS fundamentals
.sidebar {
width: 20%;
float: left;
background-color: #EFEFEF;
}
If you change width, remember to make a like adjustment to the main-content element's width so that they
total 100%.
.sidebar .content {
padding: 30px;
font-size: 12px;
line-height: 1.5em;
}
This container is inside the sidebar and serves as a container for the content inside, allowing you to adjust
whitespace (padding) without altering the CSS box model. Edit padding and font attributes to suit. If you add
properties to this rule, they will affect only the sidebar content.
.main-content .content {
padding: 30px;
font-size: 14px;
line-height: 1.5em;
border-left: 1px dotted #000;
}
This container is inside the main-content wrapper and serves as a container for the content inside, allowing you to
adjust whitespace (padding) without altering the CSS box model. This is the rule to use to set text attributes for
your main content.
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19 Page Builder Magic CSS fundamentals
.content em {
font-style: normal;
text-transform: uppercase;
font-size: 110%;
}
.content em.big {
font-size: 125%;
}
These are miscellaneous rules of a purely typographic nature. The em tag is short for emphatic and is typically
rendered by browsers as italicized text. This rule capitalizes em text, turns off italics, and makes the text 10%
larger than normal. You can remove these or edit these as you please. The .big class will make em text even larger
if you assign the big class to an em tag.
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20 Page Builder Magic CSS fundamentals
.footer {
border-top: 1px solid #222;
background-color: #222;
padding: 10px 30px;
font-size: 11px;
color: #FFF;
}
.footer p.copyright {
text-transform: uppercase;
margin: 0px;
}
The footer is assigned a top border, a background-color, padding, font-size, and color. Then we make a special class
called copyright assigned to a paragraph inside the footer.
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21 Page Builder Magic CSS fundamentals
.menutop-wrapper {
padding: 10px 20px;
background-color: #877876;
border-top: 1px solid #000;
border-bottom: 1px solid #FFF;
-webkit-box-shadow: 0px 0px 30px #999;
box-shadow: 0px 0px 30px #999;
position: relative;
z-index: 999999;
}
The DIV that contains the horizontal menu bar at the top of your page. The white bottom border along with the
gray shadow serve to create a neat bevel effect. Position and z-index should not be edited.
.menutop {
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
font-size: 0px;
text-align: left;
}
The Top Menu Bar ul. Font-Size 0px eliminates horizontal whitespace between menu items. DO NOT EDIT any
property EXCEPT for text-align, which can be changed to center or right to easily re-position the menu horizontally.
.menutop li {
list-style-type: none;
display: inline-block;
margin-right: 6px;
}
The menu list items. DO NOT EDIT the first 2 properties. Margin-right provides some separation between each item
and may be edited.
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22 Page Builder Magic CSS fundamentals
.menutop a {
display: block;
color: #000000;
text-decoration: none;
padding: 6px 10px;
font-size: 14px;
border: 1px solid #000;
border-radius: 4px;
background-color: #998C8A;
}
The menu links. Display block is required. Padding provides white space within the link box. The first padding value
controls the height of the box. The second value controls width.
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23 Page Builder Magic CSS fundamentals
.menuside a {
display: block;
color: #000;
text-decoration: none;
padding: 8px 10px;
font-size: 14px;
border: 1px solid #FFF;
border-radius: 4px;
background-color: #D2D2D2;
-webkit-box-shadow: 0px 0px 15px #DDD;
box-shadow: 0px 0px 15px #DDD;
}
The vertical menu links. Display block is required. Padding provides white space within the link box. The first
padding value controls the height of the box. The second value controls width. A box shadow is set. The menu links
are also assigned a border radius to round their corners and a nice box shadow for effect.
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24 Page Builder Magic CSS fundamentals
For Smartphones
For Tablets
Depending on the layout you choose, the above rules might be slightly different. You can
add as many rules as you want inside each of the media queries if you need to customize
your page in any way for mobile devices.
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25 Support and Contact info
PVII Communities
PVII maintains separate and distinct Web Forum and Newsgroup communities. We do this to ensure you always
have access via your preferred medium and device.
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26 Support and Contact info
If you have another newsgroup-capable program that you are using, please see its documentation to learn how to
add a new newsgroup account.
Note: PVII newsgroups are private and have nothing to do with UseNet feeds that may be provided by your ISP. That is,
you will not find our newsgroups in a list of newsgroups distributed by your internet service provider. You must set up our
news server as a new account.
Snail mail
Project Seven Development
339 Cristi Lane
Dobson, NC 27017
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