I would like to make the left pane of my DNN site much narrower. It has no content on it. The site is based on the DNNGray template.

I have tried changing and even removing every reference to "width" in every CSS file I can find. Nothing seems to make a difference. I can however change the background-color - in various different css files (portal.css, and skin.css).  So, there must be some invisible content of something preventing the actual width from changing. 

Can someone point me in the right direction? 

 
You might find it handy to NOT change your default skin files but, instead, override a skin's CSS on a page-by-page or portal-by-portal basis:

PAGE-BY-PAGE:
Use a page's PAGE HEADER TAGS setting to override certain style settings on a particular page.

   <style>.leftpane {width: 175px}</style>

PORTAL-BY-PORTAL:
Use the site's STYLESHEET EDITOR (under ADMIN->SITE SETTINGS) to override style settings for a particular portal.

   (Find the ".leftpane" entry and set the width attribute or simply add a new ".leftpane" entry to the bottom of the CSS to override any previous entry)

You may not care either way for a DNN installation with a single portal but I work with multiple instances and often with dozens of portals within the same instance -- I find it very useful to leave the default "host" skin files intact and make any desired changes at the portal or page level.

Cheers!
-mamlin

 

I totally agree (copy and only modify the copy).  We tend to leave original skins intact and rename modified copies in order to identify those copies as having been modified.  But then we also tend to load up DNN instances with dozens of portals so skin management is probably more of a concern for us than it is for admins who only run a few portals per DNN instance.

Modifying CSS at the page or portal level is a handy and "safe" way of quickly trying out changes that should eventually be rolled into a copy of the skin, as Dan said.  Overall performance will be better with all the CSS rolled into the skin.