A: Our design customers get one free redo at no charge. This includes choosing a different style sheet or minor changes to the wording. If you need extensive revisions, you're encouraged to get a no-obligation quote from the designer, or to contact a different designer from among our network.
Q: What if I want to change the colors or the size of the headlines?A: That's easy. In cascading style sheets, colors and sizes are specified by numbers. Change the number and you change the color or size. For example, if you want to enlarge the main headline, open up your style sheet in a text editor (such as Windows Notepad). Make a backup. Search for "h1," which is the code for the main headlines. Under the h1 section, you'll see a line such as "font-size: 1.75em;". Change it to "font-size: 2.0em;" and save the style sheet. Then, reload your webpage (Control-R) and see how it looks.
Colors are specified by codes such as #00000. Change the number and you'll change the color. To find the code for the color you want, use a tool such as our Color Chooser. Then paste the code into your style sheet at the appropriate point. For example, if you want to change the color of the main headline, open your style sheet in a text editor and search for the code "h1," which is the code for the main headlines. You'll see a line such as "color: #00000" which you can change to "color : #EE0343". Refresh your webpage and see if you like the result. If not, change the code back or paste in another color code.
Q: How do I view my web page if it isn't online yet? How do I view my web site?A: First, make sure you have saved your web pages and your style sheet in the same folder/directory on your computer, along with any pictures. On a Windows computer, you'd usually put them in My Documents. Even better, for organization sake, create a new folder in My Documents, such as My Documents/Website. Open up that folder in Windows Explorer or My Documents. You should see some files identified with your browser icon. That is, if you use Internet Explorer, some of the files will appear with a little blue "e" above or in front of the file name. You should recognize the file names that you chose, such as "index" or "contact." Double-click with your mouse on one of these. Web pages are named "something.htm" and style sheets are named "something.css," while pictures and images are named "something.jpg" or something.gif." But your computer may be set up to hide the extension (the part after the dot). When you double-click on the web page, it will open up in your browser and you'll be pleased at how it looks.
Q: How do I add or change the wording of a page on my website?A: It's a plain text file. You don't need any special software to do it. Open up a text editor on your computer. On a Windows XP computer, the easiest way is to click on Start - Programs - Accessories - Notepad. Notepad looks like its name: a little window where you can type stuff. From the menu bar on top of the window, click on File - Open. Browse for the page you want to edit. It's probably under My Documents unless you saved it somewhere else. Click on the file name and click Open.
At the top of the screen you'll see several line of code. Don't let it scare you. That's not for humans to read, just computers. Scroll down and you'll start to see English (or whatever language you write in). If it's English, you can edit it. You can change words, cut and paste text, add more sentences and so on. Very little of what you see in the main part of your web page will be anything but English. The main exception is paragraph codes. Each paragraph section begins with <p> and ends with </p>. So, to edit a paragraph, change anything between those two codes. To add a new paragraph, begin and end it with paragraph codes. It will amaze your friends.
Q: How do I make text bold or italic?A: Type the code <strong> at the beginning of the text you want to make bold, then </strong> at the end of it. For example, here's how to make the words <strong>New!</strong> bold.
To italicize something, enclose it with the <em> code instead of the <strong> code. For example, you make the word <em>Improved!</em> italic like this. To make words both bold and italic, use both codes. For example, <strong><em>New and Improved!</em></strong>.
Notice that when you turn on bold, or italic, or anything else, you have to turn it off too. Ranchers have a similar rule: "If y'all open a gate, y'all need to close it after you." That's a good rule too. Another good rule to learn is proper nesting of codes. For example, <strong><em>New and Improved!</strong></em> isn't right, though it will probably work for the time being.
Q: How do I add a picture?A: You can buy great pictures for your website at clipart.com. Remember that just because you find a picture on a website, that doesn't mean it doesn't belong to somebody. It may still be copyrighted. Please check first. Once you have a suitable picture saved onto the hard drive of your computer, you can insert it by typing the filename into the Stylecascade web creation wizard. Or you can insert it yourself by pasting the following code into your web page (your htm file): <img src="picture.jpg">, changing the file name from "picture.jpg" to "logo.jpg" or whatever your picture is called. Even better, include alternate description for the picture: <img src="picture.jpg" alt="Our founder"> Even better, include the size of the picture so your web page will load faster. To get the width and height of the picture, right-click with your mouse on the picture and choose Properties. That should give you the width and height in pixels. Once you have that, you can include a full professional code for the image: <img src="picture.jpg" alt="Our Founder" width="120" height="180" />
Q: Do I have to do it exactly the way you tell me?A: No. Some things are easier to do my way, some things will still work even if you do them differently. Some of my suggestions are aimed at making your website compatible with the latest web standards, so that you don't have to redo your web pages in a few years because you're using old-fashioned codes.
Q: How do I make my text blink?A: Don't.
Q: But I really want to!A: Sigh. Add this line to your style sheet: text-display: blink
Q: How do I add music to my web page?A: The best way is probably to include a line like this: Click here for <a href=music.mp3">a cool MP3 song</a> You can also make music play automatically, but it's harder and more annoying.
Q: How do I get my website to come up Number One on search engines such as Google?A: Make it obvious what your web page is about. Stylecascade makes it easy to do that. If your web site is about the Canadian songwriter Bruce Cockburn, use the phrase "Bruce Cockburn" in every paragraph, and in your headlines and titles. Tell other Canadian music webmasters about your website and ask them to link to your site. Encourage people to tag your site on del.icio.us, Digg, BlinkList, Yahoo My Web, or other social bookmarking sites. Submit your site to directories such as the Open Directory Project. You usually don't need to submit your site to the major search engines, certainly not over and over. They will find you once other websites link to your site. The search engines will follow those links and index your site for inclusion in their listings.