The default color scheme that is used for all your tools is known as the master color scheme. It is usually important that you make sure the master color scheme uses the same colors as the rest of your web site. Many people will only ever be concerned with the master color scheme because they will want all their tool web pages to look the same. However you can also specify a separate color scheme for each of your tools.

Creating the Master Color Scheme the simple way

Go to the 'Members Area' | 'Colors/Template/CSS' | 'Master Color Scheme' page. On that page you will see that you can set all the colors that are used in the tool web pages together with specifying the fonts and the background image. There is a diagram at the top of the page which illustrates what colors need to be specified and where they are used. Once you've set the colors click the Save button and that's it, all your tools will use the color scheme that you have just specified. As a starting point for setting your master color scheme, you may wish to apply one of our predefined color schemes or themes.

Applying a predefined color scheme

We have predefined some master color schemes for you to use if you wish. These can be found on the 'Members Area' | 'Colors/Template/CSS' | 'Predefined Color Scheme' page. On that page simply choose a color scheme and then click on preview to get an idea of what the colors look like. If you find a color scheme that you like, click 'apply' to apply it to your tools. Once you've applied a predefined color scheme, you can make changes to it by editing the colors on the 'Members Area' | 'Colors/Template/CSS' | 'Master Color Scheme' page. This means that you can use a predefined color scheme as a starting point and then modify it slightly to get exactly the colors and style you want.

Creating the Master Color Scheme using CSS (advanced)

You can also specify a color scheme by supplying a master CSS stylesheet. CSS gives you much greater power over the style of your web pages. To apply a master stylesheet to all your tools, go to the 'Members Area' | 'Colors/Template/CSS' | 'Master CSS Stylesheet' page and enter your stylesheet in the box provided.

Table of CSS classes used by PoppyDog

Below is a table of the CSS classes used by PoppyDog. These are the classes that you should use in the stylesheet that you provide. A useful illustration of how the classes are used can be viewed here (have a play around with the stylesheet embedded in that page)

Class	Description
body	body of your web page
td
th
h2	medium heading
h3	small heading
a:link	links
a:active	active links
a:hover	hover links
a:visited	visited links
b	bold text
label	label (used in forms)
td
th
hr
.button	class for all buttons
The following only apply if you are using the PoppyDog template:
h1	Big heading (website title that appears in the default poppydog template)
.#	The separator bar immediately below the website title and links
The following are poppydog tool specific:
.pd_shade1box	shaded bordered box (color 1)
.pd_shade2box	shaded bordered box (color 2)
.pd_shade1	shaded area (color 1)
.pd_shade1	shaded area (color 2)
.pd_table_bordered	bordered table or grid (see example)
.pd_shade1boxtitled	shaded bordered box (color 1) with a title bar (see example)
.pd_shade2boxtitled	shaded bordered box (color 2) with a title bar (see example)

Creating separate color schemes for each tool (advanced)

You can supply a stylesheet for each tool. This means that your forum boards can look totally different to your surveys. For example, lets say that you have some forum boards created with Forumboard Builder. To supply a stylesheet specifically for your forum boards go to the 'Members Area' | 'ForumBoard Builder' | 'CSS Stylesheet' page and enter the stylesheet into the box provided.

How PoppyDog cascades the stylesheets that you provide

The style sheets you provide are cascaded in the following order:

We import the default stylesheet which is automatically generated from the colors/fonts you specify on the 'Members Area' | 'Default Color Scheme' page or the tool control panel 'Color Scheme' page
We include your 'Members Area' | 'Default Stylesheet' (if you have specified one).
We include the stylesheet for the particular tool (if you have specified one).

Because we cascade the stylesheets in the manner described above, you need only specify the classes that you wish to override.

Example

Lets say that you were happy with your your color scheme, except that you want some fancy border on your members login/registration pages. All you have to do is go to: 'Registration System' | 'CSS Stylesheet' and define the desired border within the 'box 'classes e.g. .pd_shade1boxtitled :

<STYLE type=text/css>
.pd_shade1boxtitled{
border: dashed;
border-width: 4px 6px 4px 6px;
border-color: #8C64BE #4D3366 #663399 #B399CC}
</STYLE>

If you then look at the source code of your members login pages you will see, between the <head> </head> tags, something like the following:

In the above listing, the <link rel="stylesheet" href="/ud/templ/28/1054295998665.css"> line is where we import the default (automatically generated) stylesheet. After that line, you can see that we include the stylesheet you specified specifically for your Registration System.

Pages in this help section

Making the tool web pages match your web site
- Setting the color scheme for your tools
- Creating a web page template for your tools