Hi everyone. I am in the process of designing and implementing my first skin for a DNN 4.3 installation. I have read the online documentation, downloaded and read the skinning guide and even purchased the Professional DNN 4 book from Wrox press. I still require a few clarifications…

In regards to the CSS hierarchy:

Am I correct in understanding that the styles defined in the custom style sheet provided with your skin package will override the styles set in the default.css style sheet, provided you define those DNN specific styles (such as .MainMenu_MenuItem) again in your skin package CSS file? And if this incorrect, how exactly does this scenario work?

Are there any restrictions on how my custom CSS classes are applied to the skin (example: repeating backgrounds, padding and positioning)? I am still learning about CSS hierarchy, so where in the style sheet should the custom classes be defined or does it matter?

If you are specifying the styles in your skin and container package CSS sheets, what exactly is the portal.css file for?

Once you have created and uploaded your skin package, and allowed the DNN application to parse and install the skin via the upload component, am I free then to download the installed package from the server, make changes to the code, and then, using FTP, return the modified file to the server? Or do I have to re-upload using the skin upload component?

Lots of questions. Thanks in advance for any help that can be given.

TC

Welcome to the forum,

You can make changes to your css file directly and refresh your browser, theres no need to completely reinstall the skin package with every change. All the package installer does is put the files into the appropriate directory.

From what ive seen there aren't any restrictions, you can put whatever design elements in your html you like and then control those with your skin's css file. However, i haven't played too much with overriding entire tags (h1,body etc). Setting global level styles like this might cause display issues with some modules. Therefore i prefer to make new classes for the skin and apply explicitly to the skin HTML tags.