A few CSS changes and the family likeness starts to emerge

The standard Thesis theme uses a neutral palette with many subtle grey shades. All the ISVfocus.com web properties such as ISVsurvival.com and paasTalk.com use a palette based on brown and orange which, I think, gives the page a warmer feel.

If you have seen one of the other web properties then the family likeness should be clear when you stumble on to this blog. I have taken the first step towards consistent branding today, with the page background, body copy colour, link colours and a more prominent logo block.

Customising the Thesis theme

Although I use Subversion for change control, I took Chris’ advice and use user-defined functions to produce any extra HTML, such as the link list in the footer. This is a tidier approach than adding chunks of code to the existing template files.

I have only partly taken Chris’s suggestion about custom style sheets for changing the look and feel:

• for changes to specific page items (such as the header block) I add override styles to custom.css
• for global colour changes I edit styles.css directly

I use Nick Bradbury’s excellent TopStyle CSS editor which has powerful tools for consistently changing colours. This is a simpler approach for global colour changes than adding many overrides to custom.css.

TopStyle makes sure I do not miss anything, and Subversion keeps track of everything I have done. Updating to the latest and greatest version of Thesis should not be too much effort (I hope).

Family likeness emerging

I have only made a few changes so far, but there is already a clear family likeness. I will work gradually through the style sheet and tweak all the details as I go along.

I need to resist the temptation to make all the changes in one go, delaying publishing until it is perfect. The better approach is to make small changes, publishing early and often. It is one thing to know this to be true, of course, and another to force yourself to do it!